Note: This blog post is from 2019. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

Update (Nov 20, 2019): Adobe announced today that they'd come out with a new set of updates to fix the problems in the Sep 24 updates. Today's updates address the various issues reported below about the Sept update. It's important to proceed with performing the updates, for the benefit of the security updates as I discussed below back in Sept.

I shared here Tuesday the news that Adobe had announced there were new updates for CF2018 and 2016, released that day.

But as has happened every few releases, a lot of folks are reporting various problems, enough for me to say that folks may want to hold off on applying these updates, which I realize is a risky proposition since the update includes security fixes.

For more, read on.

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Note: This blog post is from 2019. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

As an update to this post, I have offered a new post, pointing out that many people are having problems with this set of updates here. So I would recommend folks hold off on applying it for now. I will update this (and that) if we hear new info from Adobe.

Beyond adding important security and bug fixes as seems typical, this update offers several new or changed features, as well as updated support for things (such as Java 12), as is also often the case.

Uniquely, though, this update is the first ever to require that you must first have updated to the PREVIOUS update before applying this new one. So those on CF2018 must first be on update 4 before going to this new update 5, while those on CF2016 must be first on update 11 before going to this new update 12.

As always, I share a bit more here, for my readers.

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Note: This blog post is from 2019. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

And I share a bit more here, for my readers.

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Note: This blog post is from 2019. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

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Note: This blog post is from 2019. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

And if you HAVE already read part 1, if it was before Saturday morning, do go back and reread it. I had added some important info that I thought shouldn't wait to Part 2, which I knew could take me a while. See especially the sections there, "A brief introduction to the vulnerability and the fix", "Should you be worried?", and "What if you can't apply the update immediately, and can't wait for part 2?".

And my apologies for the delay in getting part 2 out. For various reasons, including related to additional research work I'm doing on this exploit beyond CF, I was unable to post this then. Better late than never, I hope. Indeed, I had listed quite a lot in Part 1 that I hoped to cover in a part 2. I don't want to delay getting this out any later, so I will get done today what I can and post that, and carry over into a part 3 (or beyond) whatever remains. There are some natural breaks, fortunately. Thanks for your patience.

Following are what I cover here in Part 2:

• More detail about the vulnerability and what was "fixed"
• Wouldn't an antivirus package on the server detect this sort of trojan?
• How to add further protection from it (especially if you may be unable to implement the update for some reason)
• Considering running a security scan of your CFML code
• Consider implementing a web application firewall
• How to prevent execution of the files used in the attack, if they may already be on your server
• Another benefit of applying the latest updates
• What about Lucee?

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Note: This blog post is from 2019. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

All CF shops are urged to install this update immediately, to implement new protections against a known attack happening in the wild. It's identified in the associated Adobe Product Security Bulletin, APSB19-14, as a priority 1 critical vulnerability.

I will add that I can vouch personally for the significance of the vulnerability, as I reported it to the Adobe Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT), and I proposed the fix which was implemented. (I also know what was done specifically to perpetrate the attack, and the very negative consequences of what happened once the server of a client of mine was attacked. You don't want this to happen to you.) I plan to share much more in a part 2 post (now posted, but do see below for the context it builds upon).

(In the meantime, I have tweaked this part 1 since originally posting it, to share more here.)

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Note: This blog post is from 2018. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

After April 30, 2019, Adobe will no longer provide any updates for CF11, so there will be no security patches or hot fixes for CF 11 after that. Of course, updates for CF2016 will indeed continue into Feb 2021, while CF2018 updates will continue into July 2023. And we could expect CF2020 (when it comes) to by supported into 2025.

How do I know this? Where does Adobe say it? And can one buy support (yes) to "buy extra time to get such CF11 updates beyond April" (no)? And what about CF11 support for Java 11 (no)? Finally, could you use help in moving off CF11 to CF 2016 or 2018? For more on each of these, read on.

(Update: I should note that Adobe did indeed offer one more update beyond April 2019, in June, when they updated CF2018 and 2016 as well for an important security update. That was a bonus. They have said there really will be no more CF11 updates, as per the original plan.)

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Note: This blog post is from 2018. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

Wondering about CF support for Java 9, 10, 11, or later here in 2018 (with respect to CF 2018, CF 2016, CF 11, or earlier)? Did you know that Java 9 and Java 10 each have only 6-month lives? Seriously. And did you know that Java 9 is already no longer updated, while Java 8 still is (into next year), and that Java 11 is due to come out in September 2018? It can be quite confusing if you've not been paying attention to Oracle's new release model.

What does all this mean for Adobe and CF, and CF users? What versions of CF do, do not, and/or may support these various recent Java versions? The good news is that CF 2018 will come out running (and the second public beta does come running) on Java 10 (no word yet on Java 11). But what about other recent CF versions?

Read on for more.

Update: CF2018 did come out as expected in July 2018, and at first it came out supporting Java 10. Then after Java 11 came out in late 2018, Adobe updated both CF2018 and CF2016 in early 2019 to support Java 11 (or you can continue to use Java 8 while it's supported by Oracle). Adobe also announced in Jan 2019 that they had reached an agreement with Oracle licensing Java 11 and updates to 8 for commercial use with CF. You may want to read my post on the CF portal discussing further when the April 2019 updates for Java 8 and 11 were released by Oracle.

I leave what I wrote below for posterity/historical perspective.

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