Managed web hosting provider
AHosting has advised WordPress users worldwide to update their Linux servers. The advice comes in the wake of the discovery of the GHOST vulnerability which impacts WordPress.
AHosting was established in 2002 and owns and operates facilities in Orlando, Florida and Detroit, Michigan, USA. The company’s services stretch from reseller web hosting and multiple IP hosting to dedicated servers and Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting. It provides a range of WordPress hosting options.
AHosting has released its warning because there is a misconception that to combat the GHOST vulnerability, WordPress users need only update their WordPress installations. This is not the case as WordPress itself is not the cause of the vulnerability. An upgrade of a server’s operating system is required to eliminate the GHOST exploit risk.
Discovered by Qualys security researchers, the GHOST vulnerability affects the GNU C Library (glibc), threatening Linux servers with a remote command execution. It is triggered by an overflow bug in the gethostbyname() function. Upgrading a server’s glibc version is the only secure way to deal with the issue.
“As a provider of content management system hosting, we updated all of our WordPress hosting servers as soon as the patches became available, but we’re seeing a number of dedicated and virtual private server hosting clients failing to properly mitigate the risk of GHOST,” explained AHosting, Inc.’s Director of Business Development, Daniel Page. “We want to increase awareness that updating a WordPress installation, or any other CMS installation, isn’t enough to remove the risk - the underlying operating system should be updated.”
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