The Correct Way To Report A Security Issue With WordPress

If you don’t know by now, WordPress 2.8.4 has hit the public and it addresses a mild but hugely annoying issue. There was no advanced warning regarding the vulnerability but it was quickly patched in the core of WordPress for the next release. Unfortunately, word quickly spread and in fact, even my site WPTavern.com was affected by the problem as I received an email letting me know what my new password was even though I didn’t request one. Here are the details regarding the annoyance: a specially crafted URL could be requested that would allow an attacker to bypass a security check to verify a user requested a password reset. As a result, the first account without a key in the database (usually the admin account) would have its password reset and a new password would be emailed to the account owner. This doesn’t allow remote access, but it is […]