JoomlaDay Chicago and JoomlaCamp Chicago News

Joomla 3.9.7 is now available. This is a security fix release for the 3.x series of Joomla which addresses three security vulnerabilities and contains over 40 bug fixes and improvements.

What's in 3.9.7?

Joomla 3.9.7 includes three security vulnerability fixes and several bugs and improvements, including:

Security Issues Fixed

• Low Priority - Core - CSV injection in com_actionlogs (affecting Joomla 3.9.0 through 3.9.6) More information »
• Low Priority - Core - XSS in subform field (affecting Joomla 3.6.0 through 3.9.6) More information »
• Low Priority - Core - ACL hardening of com_joomlaupdate (affecting Joomla 3.8.13 through 3.9.6) More information »

Bug fixes and Improvements

• Batch system: Copy permissions of modules #24737 and categories #24730
• Progessive cache improvements #20310
• Fix to avoid duplicated custom fields in com_content #24516
• RTL improvements #23107 #24722
• Removal of the unofficial French Help Server #24927
• TinyMCE improvements: #24978 #25037
• RSS: Fix to display the right category #24932
• Media Manager: Fix directory traversal for symlinked folders #24924
• User registration: Correct http schema used #24089

Visit GitHub for the full list of bug fixes.

Download

We are happy to announce that the election for the replacement for the Marketing & Communications Department Coordinator has been completed.

Reference:

• OSM Bylaws: https://www.opensourcematters.org/organisation/by-laws-policies.html
• Joomla! Election Cycle: https://www.opensourcematters.org/organisation/directors/election-cycle.html
• Call for Replacement Joomla Marketing & Communications Department Nominees: https://community.joomla.org/blogs/leadership/marketing-communications-dc-replacement-nominee-announcement.html

Thank you!

Following a server level compromise of the Joomla! Extensions Directory (JED), we would like to provide our community a postmortem summary of the events leading to this issue, the response from the Joomla project team members, and a plan of action moving forward to prevent a similar type of issue in the future.

In summary, this was a preventable compromise, and after analysis, we have no reason to believe that any user data has been accessed improperly.

Issue Notification

• At approximately 09:30 UTC on 15 May 2019, a security researcher notified the Joomla Security Strike Team (JSST) that they had discovered an internal Jenkins CI server used by the JED to deploy updates to their live and staging websites and were able to exploit CVE-2018-1000861 on the server, providing a screenshot of a sensitive file as proof of the exploit.  
• Upon notification, JSST members worked with JED team members to bring the affected Jenkins system offline and conduct an analysis of whether this server had been compromised in other ways.

Systems Audit

• While investigating the Jenkins server compromise, it was found that a crypto-miner had been installed and was running on the server.  A crypto-miner is a software script used to create digital currencies via abuse of server resources (CPU and memory).
• As part of the installed software, a script was found to have been added to the server’s crontab that would attempt to connect to other servers in the local network and install the same miner.  
• Since the Jenkins server was used to deploy site updates, the script was able to access the production JED server and install itself there.
• Once it had been discovered on the JED server, steps were taken immediately to bring all services on the affected servers offline and access was restricted to privileged individuals in order to conduct a full root-cause analysis and to begin executing a recovery plan.
• In parallel, the other servers hosting the joomla.org architecture were audited to ensure they had not been compromised as well, and it was determined that only the JED’s servers were affected.
• An analysis was performed on the production JED server to determine the scope of the compromise, including when the server was presumed to be breached and what resources may have been accessed.  
• The analysis concluded that the crypto-miner had been installed on the evening of 11 May 2019 and that there was no evidence of improper data access (including access to uploaded extension packages sent to the JED Checker and the site’s database).
• With the analysis concluded, the compromised server was decommissioned with a replacement server activated and a file backup from 10 May 2019 and database from 15 May 2019 restored to the new server.  
• The restoration process was completed on 16 May 2019 with the JED team taking action to re-apply pertinent user actions performed between the backup date and the time the JED was discovered to be compromised.

Plan of Action

As a result of the server compromise, several steps are being taken to ensure the security of our servers and our user’s data.  

• First, the compromised Jenkins server is scheduled to be permanently decommissioned with the JED migrating to one of the other CI servers used by Joomla in order to eliminate a redundant resource.  
• Second, all administrative access (server level passwords and SSH keys) are being reset.  
• Third, out of an abundance of caution, all remember me tokens will be invalidated, and all registered users will be required to reset their passwords.  
• Lastly, we will be reviewing our internal workflows and procedures and improving our policies and the security features made available to our users across all joomla.org subdomains (such as enabling two-factor authentication on all sites).

Questions and Answers

Q: What was the cause of the compromise?
A: A Jenkins server used to deploy updates to the JED’s production and staging websites, had not been updated to apply a security patch, resulting in the Jenkins server and the JED production server being compromised.

Q: What was the objective of the compromise?
A: According to the analysis, the crypto-miner was installed on the evening of 11 May 2019 and ran until it was detected on 15 May 2019. The crypto-miner abused server resources (CPU and memory) to mine digital currency.

It’s an exciting day for The Joomla Project and BRANDIT! 
As the consolidation and packaging of web services move forward, we are happy to announce the official launch of our domains platform (powered by BRANDIT), domains.joomla.org.

Every website starts with a domain name, and by offering domains directly from Joomla.org, our users gain a new way to help build their online presence whilst helping the project financially.  

Domains.joomla.org is a full domain registry service that gives Joomla a direct connection to TLD’s and Registrars. 
This partnership opens up new opportunities for sponsorship and special offers to the Joomla Community.  
As we launch the platform, two registrars have already sponsored several JoomlaDays, and BRANDIT has become a Platinum Sponsor of the Joomla Project.

Whether you are looking for a new domain name or to transfer your existing domain portfolio, Domains.joomla.org is the perfect platform. Offering you a wide range of TLDs alongside a robust and intuitive industry leading control panel for domain management.  

It is that simple, get started today, together Joomla and BRANDIT make your domains feel at home!

Benefit from the special Offers for the launch!

Joomla 3.9.4 is now available. This is a security fix release for the 3.x series of Joomla which addresses 4 security vulnerabilities and contains 28 bug fixes and improvements.

What's in 3.9.4?

Joomla 3.9.4 includes 4 security vulnerabilities fixes and several bugs and improvements, including:

Security Issues Fixed

• High Priority - Core - Missing ACL check in sample data plugins (affecting Joomla 3.8.0 through 3.9.3) More information »
• Low Priority - Core - XSS in com_config JSON handler (affecting Joomla 3.2.0 through 3.9.3) More information »
• Low Priority - Core - XSS in item_title layout (affecting Joomla 3.0.0 through 3.9.3) More information »
• Low Priority - Core - XSS in media form field (affecting Joomla 3.0.0 through 3.9.3) More information »

Bug fixes and Improvements

• User Terms (#23787) and Privacy Consent (#23660) plugins: Layouts for the label and message added
• Featured articles: Page subheading added #23583
• Custom formfield layout paths simplified #22645
• Com_contact: Contact name field moved out of the Contact Information block #23563
• Custom module: Improvement of the frontend editing #23741
• Action Logs improvement: Cache (#22739) and Purge/Export (#22740) actions are now logged

Visit GitHub for the full list of bug fixes.

Download

A report by Check Point Research has been brought to our attention relating to a security vulnerability that was patched back in December 2015. This report has also been picked up by Threat Post.

Both reports contain a great deal of inaccuracies and intimate that the vulnerability detailed is a current one. 
This statement serves to clarify the facts surrounding this issue. Furthermore we would like to assure our user base that, much as these posts attempt to state that this is a current issue, the truth of the matter is far from that.

With this in mind, we would like to clarify a few points:

• There is no current security issue with the JMail class.
• The underlying issue, used to create and store the backdoor, is a PHP issue rather than a Joomla issue.
• A successful attack is only possible with severely outdated PHP and Joomla versions that are more than 3 years out of date (PHP versions 5.4.45, 5.5.29, 5.6.13 and all higher versions are patched for this vulnerability). Please see our recent article about the importance of keeping your sites up to date here.
• A mitigation for Joomla 1.5, 2.5 and 3 was released more than 3 years ago in December 2015. Patches for EOL versions were released alongside the Joomla 3.4.7 release. Patches for the other Joomla versions are still available here. The Joomla Project also distributed WAF rules to many shared hosting providers at the time of discovery to protect against common exploits of this vulnerability.
• The file mentioned in Check Point's report is not a Joomla core file, it's a copy of the original class used by the attacker to obfuscate a backdoor.
• The file does not "override" the core JMail class.

More information on the exploit

The pattern described by Check Point is a classic one - where an attacker exploits a well-known security issue. The issue is over 3 years old and stems from a security issue found in PHP, rather than the Joomla core.  More information on this issue can be found here:

Joomla World Conference (JWC) will be held in London, UK, from November 8th to 10th, 2019. The Conference will bring the brightest Joomla minds together to share their experiences, connect with others, and learn more about Joomla and its community.

​What is JWC?

"Joomla! World Conference (JWC) is an annual user conference aimed at users of the award winning Joomla! content management system. Joomla! powers over 3% of the entire world's websites and is used by individuals, multi-national corporations, governments and charities to serve and manage their online presence in an efficient, flexible and expandable way. With over 10,000 extensions to further extend Joomla! capabilities as well as a support network of thousands of developers, integrators and designers, the JWC is the place to be to meet, learn, share and connect."  - ​conference.joomla.org​

The Joomla World Conference (JWC) started in 2012 and is in a different venue/city each time around the world.  This three-day conference will include a mix of keynotes, presentations, workshops and sessions.  Each JWC is brought to you by a team of volunteers and the Joomla! Project. Joomla!® is the trademark of Open Source Matters, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

Joomla 3.9.3 is now available. This is a security fix release for the 3.x series of Joomla which addresses 6 security vulnerabilities and contains 30 bug fixes and improvements.

January 30th 2019 - It’s freezing cold in Chicago today and according to the news, it’s even colder than on the Mount Everest - so a perfect day to stay inside a warm building, sitting in front of your machine and having a (sorry, bad Everest joke) summit!

Read More on Joomla.org

Joomla 3.9.2 is now available. This is a security release for the 3.x series of Joomla which addresses 4 security vulnerabilities and contains over 50 bug fixes and improvements.

As we countdown to 2019, we’ll be raising a glass (or two) to all our incredible volunteers who have made the leaps and bounds of 2018 possible.

Joomla 3.9.1 is now available. This is a bug fix release for the 3.x series of Joomla including over 40 bug fixes and improvements.

THM Gießen has been organising "Web Programming Weeks" for 10 years. On the occasion of this year's anniversary, the Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Computer Science (MNI) once again offered the opportunity to work intensively with the Joomla CMS.

Continue Reading on Joomla.org

Joomla 3.8.12 is now available. This is a security release for the 3.x series of Joomla which addresses 3 security vulnerabilities and contains over 20 bug fixes and improvements.

Today is the 13th birthday of Joomla, so we're sharing our 13 reasons why we love JOOMLA

1. Strong Community Support
2. Flexible
3. Easy to Use
4. Extendable
5. Stable
6. Secure
7. Follows Coding Standards
8. Multilingual Capabilities
9. eCommerce Capabilities
10. Blogging Capabilities
11. Great User Management with Access Control - right out of the box!
12. Easy to update and keep secure
13. OPEN SOURCE