As per our best practice, this security and maintenance release has been automatically updated for WordPress x Lightspeed customers. Self-managed customers are strongly encouraged to upgrade to this version as there are known vulnerabilities in 5.4.0 and prior.
This release features 17 bug fixes in addition to 7 security fixes. Because this is a security release, it is recommended that you update your sites immediately. All versions since WordPress 3.7 have also been updated.
WordPress 5.4.1 is a short-cycle security and maintenance release. The next major release will be version 5.5.
For Self-Managed customers, go to Dashboard → Updates and click Update Now.
Security Updates
Seven security issues affect WordPress versions 5.4 and earlier. If you haven’t yet updated to 5.4, all WordPress versions since 3.7 have also been updated to fix the following security issues:
- Props to Muaz Bin Abdus Sattar and Jannes who both independently reported an issue where password reset tokens were not properly invalidated
- Props to ka1n4t for finding an issue where certain private posts can be viewed unauthenticated
- Props to Evan Ricafort for discovering an XSS issue in the Customizer
- Props to Ben Bidner from the WordPress Security Team who discovered an XSS issue in the search block
- Props to Nick Daugherty from WordPress VIP / WordPress Security Team who discovered an XSS issue in
wp-object-cache - Props to Ronnie Goodrich (Kahoots) and Jason Medeiros who independently reported an XSS issue in file uploads.
- Props to Weston Ruter for fixing a stored XSS vulnerability in the WordPress customizer.
- Additionally, an authenticated XSS issue in the block editor was discovered by Nguyen the Duc in WordPress 5.4 RC1 and RC2. It was fixed in 5.4 RC5. We wanted to be sure to give credit and thank them for all of their work in making WordPress more secure.
We are thankful that the reporters privately disclosing the vulnerabilities. This gave the security team time to fix the vulnerabilities before WordPress sites could be attacked.