Drupal issues critical security alert

Drupal has issued a “highly critical” security alert after uncovering a remote code execution vulnerability in some versions of the Drupal core.

The vulnerability in the open source content management software, which already has known exploits, could allow for arbitrary PHP code execution under some circumstances.

The issue has emerged because some field types have been found not to properly sanitise data from non-form sources, the alert states.

Drupal issued the alert on 20 February and issued an update three days later warning that there are public exploits now available for the vulnerability.

According to the company, sites are at risk if they are running versions of Drupal 8 and have particular web service modules enabled or allow PATCH or POST requests.

Drupal’s security team has issued patches for the vulnerability for both the Drupal 8.6.x and Drupal 8.5.x branches, and has advised that no core update is required for Drupal 7. Versions of Drupal prior to 8.5.x have been discontinued.

The vulnerability can be mitigated immediately prior to patching by disabling all web services modules, or by configuring web servers not to allow GET, PUT, PATCH or POST requests to web service resources.

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