Wordpress 2.8.6 Released

Wordpress 2.8.6 has been released since some hours to fix a security problem. You must have noticed the annoying message today in your dashboard. This release which is less than 1 month away from the previous release of wordpress 2.8.5 is of great concern to those having multiple authors on their blog.

Below is an extract of what Ryan Boren from Wordpress says about this new update:

2.8.6 fixes two security problems that can be exploited by registered, logged in users who have posting privileges. If you have untrusted authors on your blog, upgrading to 2.8.6 is recommended.

The first problem is an XSS vulnerability in Press This discovered by Benjamin Flesch. The second problem, discovered by Dawid Golunski, is an issue with sanitizing uploaded file names that can be exploited in certain Apache configurations. Thanks to Benjamin and Dawid for finding and reporting these.

If your blog consists of multiple authors who have direct posting privilege, then it is recommended that you upgrade now itself. This new Wordpress 2.8.6 update does not include any update within the database but as precaution you are advised to always make a backup before upgrading.

Those who do not have multiple authors, can skip this update and wait for Wordpress 2.9 which is due…for very soon.