WordPress 4.7.1 Fixes Eight Security Issues

WordPress 4.7.1 is available for download and fixes eight security issues that affect WordPress 4.7 and below. The PHPMailer library was updated to patch a remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability. WordFence reported the vulnerability last month as critical and that it affects WordPress core.

However, in the announcement post for 4.7.1, Aaron Campbell, WordPress’ new Security Czar says that, “No specific issue appears to affect WordPress or any of the major plugins we investigated but, out of an abundance of caution, we updated PHPMailer in this release.” Dawid Golunski and Paul Buonopane are credited with responsibly disclosing the vulnerability.

WordPress 4.7.1 also fixes an issue where the REST API exposed user data for all users who authored a post of a public post type. This release limits this ability to only post types which have specified that they should be shown within the API. Brian Krogsgard and Chris Jean are credited with responsibly disclosing the vulnerability.

In addition to patching eight security issues, this release fixes 62 bugs. To see a full list of changes, visit the release notes page or you can view them on Trac. Sites should update automatically but if you’d like to update sooner, visit your site’s Dashboard, select Updates, and click the Update Now button.