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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.

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  • 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.

Reported By: Chen Ruiqi, Codesafe team

  • 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.

Reported By: Conor McKnight

  • 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
Note: This advisory was revised to reflect the addition of CVE-2016-10045 and the PHPMailer 5.2.20 release

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

Contact

The JSST at the Joomla! Security Centre.

Reported By: Dawid Golunski

  • 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.

  • 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.

Reported By: Christiaan Klatte and Brian Teeman

  • 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.

Reported By: Xiphos Research Ltd.

  • Project: Joomla!
  • SubProject: CMS
  • Severity: High
  • Versions: 1.6.0 through 3.6.4
  • Exploit type: Elevated Privileges
  • Reported Date: 2016-November-04
  • Fixed Date: 2016-December-06
  • CVE Number: CVE-2016-9838

Description

Incorrect use of unfiltered data stored to the session on a form validation failure allows for existing user accounts to be modified; to include resetting their username, password, and user group assignments.

Affected Installs

Joomla! CMS versions 1.6.0 through 3.6.4

Solution

Upgrade to version 3.6.5

Contact

The JSST at the Joomla! Security Centre.

Reported By: @iamsecurity

  • Project: Joomla!
  • SubProject: CMS
  • Severity: High
  • Versions: 3.4.4 through 3.6.3
  • Exploit type: Account Modifications
  • Reported Date: 2016-October-26
  • Fixed Date: 2016-October-25
  • CVE Number: CVE-2016-9081

Description

Incorrect use of unfiltered data allows for existing user accounts to be modified; to include resetting their username, password, and user group assignments.

Affected Installs

Joomla! CMS versions 3.4.4 through 3.6.3

Solution

Upgrade to version 3.6.4

Contact

The JSST at the Joomla! Security Centre.

Reported By: Joomla! Security Strike Team

  • Project: Joomla!
  • SubProject: CMS
  • Severity: High
  • Versions: 3.4.4 through 3.6.3
  • Exploit type: Elevated Privileges
  • Reported Date: 2016-October-21
  • Fixed Date: 2016-October-25
  • CVE Number: CVE-2016-8869

Description

Incorrect use of unfiltered data allows for users to register on a site with elevated privileges.

Affected Installs

Joomla! CMS versions 3.4.4 through 3.6.3

Solution

Upgrade to version 3.6.4

Contact

The JSST at the Joomla! Security Centre.

Reported By: Davide Tampellini

  • Project: Joomla!
  • SubProject: CMS
  • Severity: High
  • Versions: 3.4.4 through 3.6.3
  • Exploit type: Account Creation
  • Reported Date: 2016-October-18
  • Fixed Date: 2016-October-25
  • CVE Number: CVE-2016-8870

Description

Inadequate checks allows for users to register on a site when registration has been disabled.

Affected Installs

Joomla! CMS versions 3.4.4 through 3.6.3

Solution

Upgrade to version 3.6.4

Contact

The JSST at the Joomla! Security Centre.

Reported By: Demis Palma

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