NEWS

Contact Form 7 Vulnerability in +5 Million Sites

Published

1 year ago

December 18, 2020

A vulnerability has been discovered in Contact Form 7 that allows an attacker to upload malicious scripts. The publishers of Contact Form 7 have released an update to fix the vulnerability.

Unrestricted File Upload Vulnerability

An unrestricted file upload vulnerability in a WordPress plugin is when the plugin allows an attacker to upload a web shell (malicious script) that can then be used to take over a site, tamper with a database and so on.

A web shell is a malicious script that can be written in any web language that is uploaded to a vulnerable site, automatically processed and used to gain access, execute commands, tamper with the database, etc.

Contact Form 7 calls their latest update an “urgent security and maintenance release.”

According to Contact Form 7:

“An unrestricted file upload vulnerability has been found in Contact Form 7 5.3.1 and older versions.
Utilizing this vulnerability, a form submitter can bypass Contact Form 7’s filename sanitization, and upload a file which can be executed as a script file on the host server.”

A more detailed description of the vulnerability was published on Contact Form 7’s WordPress plugin repository page.

These are the additional details about the vulnerability that was shared on the official WordPress plugin repository for Contact Form 7:

“Removes control, separator, and other types of special characters from filename to fix the unrestricted file upload vulnerability issue.”

Screenshot of WordPress Plugin Changelog Update Description

The screenshot above is of the Contact Form 7 plugin “more info” description that is shown when updating the plugin from a WordPress installation. The wording matches what is published on the official WordPress repository for the plugin.

Filename Sanitization

Filename sanitization is a reference to a function related to scripts that process uploads. Filename sanitization functions are designed to control what kinds of files (file names) are uploaded by restricting certain kinds of files. Filename sanitization also can control file paths.

A filename sanitization function works by blocking certain file names and/or allowing only a restricted list of file names.

In the case of Contact Form 7, there was an issue in the filename sanitization which created the situation where certain kinds of dangerous files were unintentionally allowed.

Vulnerability Fixed in Contact Form 7 Version 7.5.3.2

The vulnerability was originally discovered by researchers at Web Security company Astra.

The filename sanitization vulnerability exploit is fixed in Contact Form 7 version 7 5.3.2.

All versions of Contact Form 7 from 7 5.3.1 and under are considered vulnerable and should be updated immediately.

Citations

Read announcement at Contact Form 7
https://contactform7.com/2020/12/17/contact-form-7-532/

Read announcement at Security Company Astra
Unrestricted File Upload Vulnerability found in Contact Form 7

Read the Contact Form 7 Changelog

Searchenginejournal.com

NEWS

Google December Product Reviews Update Affects More Than English Language Sites? via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Published

5 months ago

December 28, 2021

Roger Montti

Google’s Product Reviews update was announced to be rolling out to the English language. No mention was made as to if or when it would roll out to other languages. Mueller answered a question as to whether it is rolling out to other languages.

Google December 2021 Product Reviews Update

On December 1, 2021, Google announced on Twitter that a Product Review update would be rolling out that would focus on English language web pages.

Our December 2021 product reviews update is now rolling out for English-language pages. It will take about three weeks to complete. We have also extended our advice for product review creators: https://t.co/N4rjJWoaqE
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) December 1, 2021

The focus of the update was for improving the quality of reviews shown in Google search, specifically targeting review sites.

A Googler tweeted a description of the kinds of sites that would be targeted for demotion in the search rankings:

“Mainly relevant to sites that post articles reviewing products.
Think of sites like “best TVs under $200″.com.
Goal is to improve the quality and usefulness of reviews we show users.”

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Google also published a blog post with more guidance on the product review update that introduced two new best practices that Google’s algorithm would be looking for.

The first best practice was a requirement of evidence that a product was actually handled and reviewed.

The second best practice was to provide links to more than one place that a user could purchase the product.

The Twitter announcement stated that it was rolling out to English language websites. The blog post did not mention what languages it was rolling out to nor did the blog post specify that the product review update was limited to the English language.

Google’s Mueller Thinking About Product Reviews Update

Product Review Update Targets More Languages?

The person asking the question was rightly under the impression that the product review update only affected English language search results.

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But he asserted that he was seeing search volatility in the German language that appears to be related to Google’s December 2021 Product Review Update.

This is his question:

“I was seeing some movements in German search as well.
So I was wondering if there could also be an effect on websites in other languages by this product reviews update… because we had lots of movement and volatility in the last weeks.
…My question is, is it possible that the product reviews update affects other sites as well?”

John Mueller answered:

“I don’t know… like other languages?
My assumption was this was global and and across all languages.
But I don’t know what we announced in the blog post specifically.
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But usually we try to push the engineering team to make a decision on that so that we can document it properly in the blog post.
I don’t know if that happened with the product reviews update. I don’t recall the complete blog post.
But it’s… from my point of view it seems like something that we could be doing in multiple languages and wouldn’t be tied to English.
And even if it were English initially, it feels like something that is relevant across the board, and we should try to find ways to roll that out to other languages over time as well.
So I’m not particularly surprised that you see changes in Germany.
But I also don’t know what we actually announced with regards to the locations and languages that are involved.”

Does Product Reviews Update Affect More Languages?

While the tweeted announcement specified that the product reviews update was limited to the English language the official blog post did not mention any such limitations.

Google’s John Mueller offered his opinion that the product reviews update is something that Google could do in multiple languages.

One must wonder if the tweet was meant to communicate that the update was rolling out first in English and subsequently to other languages.

It’s unclear if the product reviews update was rolled out globally to more languages. Hopefully Google will clarify this soon.