Security Announcements
This feed provides announcements of resolved security issues in Joomla! software releases.
For more information about the Joomla! Security Strike Team (JSST) and its processes, please review our Security article.
To report potential security issues, please follow the guidelines in the above referenced article. Please note that we are only able to provide support for the Joomla! CMS, Joomla! Framework, and *.joomla.org network of websites.
You can subscribe to notifications from this feed through a RSS reader or email notifications via FeedBurner.
[20170406] - Core - ACL Violations
- Project: Joomla!
- SubProject: CMS
- Severity: Low
- Versions: 1.6.0 through 3.6.5
- Exploit type: ACL Violation
- Reported Date: 2016-April-29
- Fixed Date: 2017-April-25
- CVE Number: CVE-2017-7988
Description
Inadequate filtering of form contents lead allow to overwrite the author of an article.
Affected Installs
Joomla! CMS versions 1.6.0 through 3.6.5
Solution
Upgrade to version 3.7.0
Contact
The JSST at the Joomla! Security Centre.
[20170405] - Core - XSS Vulnerability
- Project: Joomla!
- SubProject: CMS
- Severity: Low
- Versions: 3.2.0 through 3.6.5
- Exploit type: XSS
- Reported Date: 2016-February-28
- Fixed Date: 2017-April-25
- CVE Number: CVE-2017-7987
Description
Inadequate escaping of file and folder names leads to XSS vulnerabilities in the template manager component.
Affected Installs
Joomla! CMS versions 3.2.0 through 3.6.5
Solution
Upgrade to version 3.7.0
Contact
The JSST at the Joomla! Security Centre.
[20170404] - Core - XSS Vulnerability
- Project: Joomla!
- SubProject: CMS
- Severity: Low
- Versions: 1.5.0 through 3.6.5
- Exploit type: XSS
- Reported Date: 2017-February-22
- Fixed Date: 2017-April-25
- CVE Number: CVE-2017-7986
Description
Inadequate filtering of specific HTML attributes leads to XSS vulnerabilities in various components.
Affected Installs
Joomla! CMS versions 1.5.0 through 3.6.5
Solution
Upgrade to version 3.7.0
Contact
The JSST at the Joomla! Security Centre.
[20170403] - Core - XSS Vulnerability
- Project: Joomla!
- SubProject: CMS
- Severity: Low
- Versions: 1.5.0 through 3.6.5
- Exploit type: XSS
- Reported Date: 2017-March-21
- Fixed Date: 2017-April-25
- CVE Number: CVE-2017-7985
Description
Inadequate filtering of multibyte characters leads to XSS vulnerabilities in various components.
Affected Installs
Joomla! CMS versions 1.5.0 through 3.6.5
Solution
Upgrade to version 3.7.0
Contact
The JSST at the Joomla! Security Centre.
[20170402] - Core - XSS Vulnerability
- Project: Joomla!
- SubProject: CMS
- Severity: Low
- Versions: 3.2.0 through 3.6.5
- Exploit type: XSS
- Reported Date: 2016-December-23
- Fixed Date: 2017-April-25
- CVE Number: CVE-2017-7984
Description
Inadequate filtering leads to XSS in the template manager component.
Affected Installs
Joomla! CMS versions 3.2.0 through 3.6.5
Solution
Upgrade to version 3.7.0
Contact
The JSST at the Joomla! Security Centre.
[20170401] - Core - Information Disclosure
- Project: Joomla!
- SubProject: CMS
- Severity: Low
- Versions: 1.5.0 through 3.6.5
- Exploit type: Information Disclosure
- Reported Date: 2017-Jan-02
- Fixed Date: 2017-April-25
- CVE Number: CVE-2017-7983
Description
Mail sent using the JMail API leaked the used PHPMailer version in the mail headers.
Affected Installs
Joomla! CMS versions 1.5.0 through 3.6.5
Solution
Upgrade to version 3.7.0
Contact
The JSST at the Joomla! Security Centre.
[20161205] - PHPMailer Security Advisory
- Project: Joomla!
- Severity: High
- Versions: 1.5.0 through 3.6.5
- Exploit type: Remote Code Execution in third-party PHPMailer library
- CVE Numbers: CVE-2016-10033 and CVE-2016-10045
Description
All versions of the third-party PHPMailer library distributed with Joomla! versions up to 3.6.5 are vulnerable to a remote code execution vulnerability. This is patched in PHPMailer 5.2.20 which will be included with Joomla! 3.7. After analysis, the JSST has determined that through correct use of the JMail class, there are additional validations in place which make executing this vulnerability impractical within the Joomla environment. As well, the vulnerability requires being able to pass user input to a message's "from" address; all places in the core Joomla API which send mail use the sender address set in the global configuration and does not allow for user input to be set elsewhere. However, extensions which bundle a separate version of PHPMailer or do not use the Joomla API to send email may be vulnerable to this issue.
Generally, the Joomla project does not issue advisories regarding third party libraries, however given the severity of this issue we felt it important to advise our users that we are aware of this issue and we have determined that the additional validations in our API prevent triggering this vulnerability.
Affected Installs
Joomla! CMS versions 1.5.0 through 3.6.5
Solution
No action required for Joomla users, the updated library will be included in the next scheduled release and additional mechanisms exist in Joomla core to prevent triggering the vulnerability. Users of the PHPMailer library separate from Joomla are advised to upgrade to 5.2.20 or newer ASAP.
Additional Resources
- https://legalhackers.com/advisories/PHPMailer-Exploit-Remote-Code-Exec-CVE-2016-10033-Vuln.html
- https://legalhackers.com/advisories/PHPMailer-Exploit-Remote-Code-Exec-CVE-2016-10045-Vuln-Patch-Bypass.html
- https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/blob/master/SECURITY.md
- https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/wiki/About-the-CVE-2016-10033-and-CVE-2016-10045-vulnerabilities
Contact
The JSST at the Joomla! Security Centre.
[20161204] - Misc. Security Hardening
- Project: Joomla!
- SubProject: CMS
Description
Joomla! 3.6.5 includes additional security hardening mechanisms prepared by the JSST, thanks in part to issue reports from Fotis Evangelou and Nicholas Dionysopoulos, which restricts a user's ability to make potentially damaging configuration changes. This includes restricting the ability to set the "New User Registration Group" and "Guest User Group" to a group with Super User permissions and restricting the ability for a lesser privileged user to make user group assignment changes to users in a Super User group.
Additionally, we have modified the behavior of JUser::authorise() to only return a boolean value. Previously, this method could return either a boolean value or null because the underlying call to JAccess::check() can also return a null value; neither JUser::authorise() or JAccess::check() documented this though. We have determined that based on how the API is used that JUser::authorise() should only return a boolean value. If a developer requires the previous behavior of a null return value (which indicates an "implicit" denied state versus "explicit" signified by boolean false), they should use JAccess::check() instead. The documentation for JAccess::check() has been updated to indicate the null return value as well.
Contact
The JSST at the Joomla! Security Centre.
[20161203] - Core - Information Disclosure
- Project: Joomla!
- SubProject: CMS
- Severity: Low
- Versions: 3.0.0 through 3.6.4
- Exploit type: Information Disclosure
- Reported Date: 2016-April-15
- Fixed Date: 2016-December-06
- CVE Number: CVE-2016-9837
Description
Inadequate ACL checks in the Beez3 com_content article layout override enables a user to view restricted content.
Affected Installs
Joomla! CMS versions 3.0.0 through 3.6.4
Solution
Upgrade to version 3.6.5
Contact
The JSST at the Joomla! Security Centre.
[20161202] - Core - Shell Upload
- Project: Joomla!
- SubProject: CMS
- Severity: Low
- Versions: 3.0.0 through 3.6.4
- Exploit type: Shell Upload
- Reported Date: 2016-October-26
- Fixed Date: 2016-December-06
- CVE Number: CVE-2016-9836
Description
Inadequate filesystem checks allowed files with alternative PHP file extensions to be uploaded.
Affected Installs
Joomla! CMS versions 3.0.0 through 3.6.4
Solution
Upgrade to version 3.6.5
Contact
The JSST at the Joomla! Security Centre.