An update for the popular WordPress plugin Jetpack addresses a critical security flaw that has existed for more than two years.
With over 5 million installations to date, Jetpack provides WordPress site admins with security, performance, and site management capabilities.
The plugin was designed to keep websites protected from brute-force attacks and unauthorized logins, and can deliver basic protection for free, while additional capabilities are available as part of premium plans.
The Jetpack team released version 7.9.1 of the plugin this week, announcing the inclusion of a critical security update in it and urging users to update their sites as soon as possible.
The team also revealed that the update fixes a vulnerability in the way Jetpack processed embed code and that the security flaw was present in the popular plugin since Jetpack 5.1, which was released in July 2017.
“We have no evidence that this vulnerability has been exploited in the wild. However, now that the update has been released, it is only a matter of time before someone tries to take advantage of this vulnerability,” the team says.
The vulnerability was discovered by Adham Sadaqah, who reported it to Jetpack in a responsible manner.
The team also announced that they worked with the WordPress.org Security Team to release patches for every version of Jetpack since 5.1. Most of the impacted websites, they revealed, should have been already updated to a secured version, or will be updated soon.
Released versions include 5.1.1, 5.2.2, 5.3.1, 5.4.1, 5.5.2, 5.6.2, 5.7.2, 5.8.1, 5.9.1, 6.0.1, 6.1.2, 6.2.2, 6.3.4, 6.4.3, 6.5.1, 6.6.2, 6.7.1, 6.8.2, 6.9.1, 7.0.2, 7.1.2, 7.2.2, 7.3.2, 7.4.2, 7.5.4, 7.6.1, 7.7.3, 7.8.1, and 7.9.1.
“If you are running any of these versions, your website is not vulnerable to this issue. But, if you’re not running the latest and greatest—7.9.1—your site is missing other security enhancements,” the team announced.
Jetpack 7.9.1 fixes other issues as well, and improves compatibility with Twenty Twenty, the new default theme for WordPress.
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