WordPress 3.5.2 Security and Maintenance Release

The WordPress team just pushed out a new version of WordPress (3.5.2) that has some security bugs fixed. Straight from their release post, these are the security changes:

  1. Blocking server-side request forgery attacks, which could potentially enable an attacker to gain access to a site.
  2. Disallow contributors from improperly publishing posts, reported by Konstantin Kovshenin, or reassigning the post’s authorship, reported by Luke Bryan.
  3. An update to the SWFUpload external library to fix cross-site scripting vulnerabilities. Reported by mala and Szymon Gruszecki.
  4. Prevention of a denial of service attack, affecting sites using password-protected posts.
  5. An update to an external TinyMCE library to fix a cross-site scripting vulnerability. Reported by Wan Ikram.
  6. Multiple fixes for cross-site scripting. Reported by Andrea Santese and Rodrigo.
  7. Avoid disclosing a full file path when a upload fails. Reported by Jakub Galczyk.


One of the bigger actions from this release and the disclosure of the SWFUpload external library vulnerabilities in general is the announcement of a secure SWFUpload fork by the WordPress Core team.

The WordPress security team has officially forked the long-abandoned SWFUpload project and is strongly encouraging all web developers who use SWFUpload to update.

The team goes on to say they do not condone the use of abandonware, but they wish to make the web a better place by ensuring that developers have access to a secure version of SWFUpload.

They also encourage you to report any vulnerabilities found in the fork.

Quick Diff List

There weren’t many changes in this release, but these are all the modified files:


Files wordpress-3.5.1/readme.html and wordpress-3.5.2/readme.html differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-admin/about.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-admin/about.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-admin/edit-form-advanced.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-admin/edit-form-advanced.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-admin/includes/class-wp-importer.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-admin/includes/class-wp-importer.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-admin/includes/class-wp-upgrader.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-admin/includes/class-wp-upgrader.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-admin/includes/file.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-admin/includes/file.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-admin/includes/media.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-admin/includes/media.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-admin/includes/post.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-admin/includes/post.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-admin/includes/schema.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-admin/includes/schema.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-admin/includes/update-core.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-admin/includes/update-core.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-admin/includes/upgrade.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-admin/includes/upgrade.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-admin/update.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-admin/update.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-content/plugins/akismet/admin.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-content/plugins/akismet/admin.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-content/plugins/akismet/akismet.css and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-content/plugins/akismet/akismet.css differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-content/plugins/akismet/akismet.js and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-content/plugins/akismet/akismet.js differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-content/plugins/akismet/akismet.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-content/plugins/akismet/akismet.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-content/plugins/akismet/.htaccess and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-content/plugins/akismet/.htaccess differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-content/plugins/akismet/readme.txt and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-content/plugins/akismet/readme.txt differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-content/themes/twentyeleven/languages/twentyeleven.pot and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-content/themes/twentyeleven/languages/twentyeleven.pot differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-content/themes/twentytwelve/languages/twentytwelve.pot and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-content/themes/twentytwelve/languages/twentytwelve.pot differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/class-feed.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/class-feed.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/class-http.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/class-http.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/class-oembed.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/class-oembed.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/class-phpass.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/class-phpass.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/class-wp-admin-bar.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/class-wp-admin-bar.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/class-wp-xmlrpc-server.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/class-wp-xmlrpc-server.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/comment.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/comment.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/deprecated.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/deprecated.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/formatting.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/formatting.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/functions.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/functions.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/http.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/http.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/js/media-editor.js and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/js/media-editor.js differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/js/media-editor.min.js and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/js/media-editor.min.js differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/js/plupload/handlers.js and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/js/plupload/handlers.js differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/js/plupload/handlers.min.js and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/js/plupload/handlers.min.js differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/js/swfupload/handlers.js and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/js/swfupload/handlers.js differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/js/swfupload/handlers.min.js and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/js/swfupload/handlers.min.js differ
Only in wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/js/swfupload: swfupload-all.js
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/js/swfupload/swfupload.swf and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/js/swfupload/swfupload.swf differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/js/tinymce/plugins/media/moxieplayer.swf and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/js/tinymce/plugins/media/moxieplayer.swf differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/js/tinymce/tiny_mce.js and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/js/tinymce/tiny_mce.js differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/js/tinymce/wp-tinymce.js.gz and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/js/tinymce/wp-tinymce.js.gz differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/media-template.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/media-template.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/pluggable.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/pluggable.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/post.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/post.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/post-template.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/post-template.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/rss.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/rss.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/script-loader.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/script-loader.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/user.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/user.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/version.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/version.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-includes/wp-db.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-includes/wp-db.php differ
Files wordpress-3.5.1/wp-login.php and wordpress-3.5.2/wp-login.php differ

Please make sure to update as soon as you can, it’s not super awesome to be running around with old and insecure versions of any software 😀

15 comments
  1. Thanks for the advice! Seems there is a error with the link to the release note ->
    hhttp://wordpress.org/news/2013/06/wordpress-3-5-2/

    🙂

    1. It is a minor release and should not have affected your admin area. Please check out the WordPress forums to see if anyone else is having issues. Most likely it’s a plugin conflict.

      1. I have had the same issue on a number of sites. I logged into FTP and manually deleted and then replaced the wp-admin folder. It worked for all my sites, so I suggest you try that.

  2. Thank you Dre for keeping us all informed, I first learned about this update here. Now proceeding with deploying the update to my test sites before the live ones.

    1. Hmm. I smell a comment spammer. Click on this commenter’s name and look at the other comments that they have left. They are ALL almost identical. :-/

  3. After the update of WP 3.5.2, admin panel is disappearing. I had to manually delete and replace the wp-admin folder from FTP to fix it. Is there any way to avoid this error?

    Any idea when WP 3.6 is releasing?

Comments are closed.

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