Joomla! 3.6.5 Released

Joomla! 3.6.5 is now available. This is a security release for the 3.x series of Joomla! which addresses three security vulnerabilities, miscellaneous security hardening and three bug fixes; no further changes have been made compared to the Joomla! 3.6.4 release. We strongly recommend that you update your sites.

What's in 3.6.5

Version 3.6.5 is released to address three security issues, miscellaneous security hardening and three bugs.

Security Issues Fixed

• High Priority - Core - Elevated Privileges (affecting Joomla! 1.6.0 through 3.6.4) More information »
• Low Priority - Core - Shell Upload (affecting Joomla! 3.0.0 through 3.6.4) More information »
• Low Priority - Core - Information Disclosure (affecting Joomla! 3.0.0 through 3.6.4) More information »
• Security Hardening More information »

Bug Fixes

• [#12817] Fix Joomla Updater for Windows Users
• [#12984] Fix installation language for sr-YU
• [#12589] and [#13127] Fix default values for user creation on installation

Please see the documentation wiki for FAQ’s regarding the 3.6.5 release.

[20161201] - Core - Elevated Privileges

• Project: Joomla!
• SubProject: CMS
• Severity: High
• Versions: 1.6.0 through 3.6.4
• Exploit type: Elevated Privileges
• Reported Date: 2016-November-04
• Fixed Date: 2016-December-06
• CVE Number: CVE-2016-9838

Description

Incorrect use of unfiltered data stored to the session on a form validation failure allows for existing user accounts to be modified; to include resetting their username, password, and user group assignments.

Affected Installs

Joomla! CMS versions 1.6.0 through 3.6.4

Solution

Upgrade to version 3.6.5

[20161202] - Core - Shell Upload

• Project: Joomla!
• SubProject: CMS
• Severity: Low
• Versions: 3.0.0 through 3.6.4
• Exploit type: Shell Upload
• Reported Date: 2016-October-26
• Fixed Date: 2016-December-06
• CVE Number: CVE-2016-9836

Description

Inadequate filesystem checks allowed files with alternative PHP file extensions to be uploaded.

Affected Installs

Joomla! CMS versions 3.0.0 through 3.6.4

Solution

Upgrade to version 3.6.5

[20161203] - Core - Information Disclosure

• Project: Joomla!
• SubProject: CMS
• Severity: Low
• Versions: 3.0.0 through 3.6.4
• Exploit type: Information Disclosure
• Reported Date: 2016-April-15
• Fixed Date: 2016-December-06
• CVE Number: CVE-2016-9837

Description

Inadequate ACL checks in the Beez3 com_content article layout override enables a user to view restricted content.

Affected Installs

Joomla! CMS versions 3.0.0 through 3.6.4

Solution

Upgrade to version 3.6.5

[20161204] - Misc. Security Hardening

• Project: Joomla!
• SubProject: CMS

Description

Joomla! 3.6.5 includes additional security hardening mechanisms prepared by the JSST, thanks in part to issue reports from Fotis Evangelou and Nicholas Dionysopoulos, which restricts a user's ability to make potentially damaging configuration changes. This includes restricting the ability to set the "New User Registration Group" and "Guest User Group" to a group with Super User permissions and restricting the ability for a lesser privileged user to make user group assignment changes to users in a Super User group.

Additionally, we have modified the behavior of JUser::authorise() to only return a boolean value. Previously, this method could return either a boolean value or null because the underlying call to JAccess::check() can also return a null value; neither JUser::authorise() or JAccess::check()documented this though. We have determined that based on how the API is used that JUser::authorise() should only return a boolean value. If a developer requires the previous behavior of a null return value (which indicates an "implicit" denied state versus "explicit" signified by boolean false), they should use JAccess::check() instead. The documentation for JAccess::check() has been updated to indicate the null return value as well.