WordPress Exploit Avoided

I upgraded this blog to WordPress 2.8.4 this morning to avoid falling victim to a new exploit that has apparently already compromised a fair number of WordPress-based blogs.

Yesterday a vulnerability was discovered: 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 very annoying.

Once again, the one-click upgrade facility on dreamhost made this a quick and easy exercise.

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