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Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2024 8:59 am
ast week, the Woo team announced a critical vulnerability in the most popular eCommerce plugin for WordPress: WooCommerce. As described in their post , security updates were pushed to all Woo branches for users who had not disabled them. This was done in a very fast and efficient manner. Furthermore, the Woo team has been extremely cooperative in providing all the necessary information that allowed us to proactively add security rules to our WAF (Web Application Firewall) for an additional layer of protection. Discover below all the actions taken and their results.
Branched Updates Powered by Woo
Due to the severity of the discovered vulnerabilities, the WooCommerce team has been working over 36 hours continuously to patch each major release branch. This means that you don’t have to downgrade from WooCommerce 4 to 5 to protect yourself. Those updates have been pushed, and if you haven’t explicitly disabled them, your WooCommerce has most likely already been patched. However, we strongly recommend that you check. All WooCommerce versions older than the latest patch are vulnerable. You can check your version and compare it to the WooCommerce releases page at this link: https://developer.woocommerce.com/releases/ . For example, if you’re on WooCommerce 5.5.2, you should simply upgrade to 5.5.1. That will fix the security issue without breaking any functionality.
Proactive WAF protection set up by SiteGround
When it comes to security, we at SiteGround have always believed that being proactive is the best approach. This particular vulnerability was no exception. As soon as the Woo team informed us about it, we acted immediately and added a new security rule to our Web Application Firewall (WAF), an elaborate exploit prevention system that runs on all of our servers. You can think of the firewall as a set of rules that address exploitation attempts. We are constantly on the lookout for information about common security issues and act quickly by adding security rules, so that our system can block attempts to exploit such issues. The WAF system will not patch a qatar whatsapp number data particular website’s security hole – that can only be done by updating it with the security release – but it does prevent attackers from using it to gain unauthorized access to your website.
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You might be wondering why you need a WAF rule when the Woo team is quick to release a new security version. We do this to make sure our users have more time to react, during which their websites are safe from the exploit. While Woo automatically updates most WooCommerce users, some websites don’t get updated for various reasons: the auto-update failed, was disabled, or was postponed too long. Some webmasters prefer to manage updates themselves, mainly because they want to make sure the update doesn’t interfere with any of their website’s features. After all, we’re generally talking about online stores, relying on many additional plugins for shipping, payments, tracking, taxes, and much more. For these people, WAF rules provide time to make sure all their critical features work with the new Woo version.
Overall, Woo's handling of this vulnerability shows how the combined efforts of plugin developers and your web hosting company pay off: even in emergency situations, your customers are safe a
Branched Updates Powered by Woo
Due to the severity of the discovered vulnerabilities, the WooCommerce team has been working over 36 hours continuously to patch each major release branch. This means that you don’t have to downgrade from WooCommerce 4 to 5 to protect yourself. Those updates have been pushed, and if you haven’t explicitly disabled them, your WooCommerce has most likely already been patched. However, we strongly recommend that you check. All WooCommerce versions older than the latest patch are vulnerable. You can check your version and compare it to the WooCommerce releases page at this link: https://developer.woocommerce.com/releases/ . For example, if you’re on WooCommerce 5.5.2, you should simply upgrade to 5.5.1. That will fix the security issue without breaking any functionality.
Proactive WAF protection set up by SiteGround
When it comes to security, we at SiteGround have always believed that being proactive is the best approach. This particular vulnerability was no exception. As soon as the Woo team informed us about it, we acted immediately and added a new security rule to our Web Application Firewall (WAF), an elaborate exploit prevention system that runs on all of our servers. You can think of the firewall as a set of rules that address exploitation attempts. We are constantly on the lookout for information about common security issues and act quickly by adding security rules, so that our system can block attempts to exploit such issues. The WAF system will not patch a qatar whatsapp number data particular website’s security hole – that can only be done by updating it with the security release – but it does prevent attackers from using it to gain unauthorized access to your website.
Subscribe for
more amazing content
Sign up to receive our monthly newsletter with useful content and offers from SiteGround.
Subscribe
You might be wondering why you need a WAF rule when the Woo team is quick to release a new security version. We do this to make sure our users have more time to react, during which their websites are safe from the exploit. While Woo automatically updates most WooCommerce users, some websites don’t get updated for various reasons: the auto-update failed, was disabled, or was postponed too long. Some webmasters prefer to manage updates themselves, mainly because they want to make sure the update doesn’t interfere with any of their website’s features. After all, we’re generally talking about online stores, relying on many additional plugins for shipping, payments, tracking, taxes, and much more. For these people, WAF rules provide time to make sure all their critical features work with the new Woo version.
Overall, Woo's handling of this vulnerability shows how the combined efforts of plugin developers and your web hosting company pay off: even in emergency situations, your customers are safe a