Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 12:50:31 -0500
From: Brian Lloyd
To: zope-announce@zope.org, zope@zope.org, zope-dev@zope.org
Subject: [Zope-Annce] SECURITY ALERT and Zope hotfix release [2001-03-08]

Hello all -

An issue has come to our attention (thanks to Randy Kern) that necessitates a Zope hotfix. Hotfix products can be installed to incorporate modifications to Zope at runtime without requiring an immediate installation upgrade. Hotfix products are installed just as you would install any other Zope product.

This hotfix (Hotfix_2001-03-08)addresses an important security issue that affects Zope version 2.3.0 and the current 2.3.1 beta 1 release.

The issue involves an error in the 'aq_inContextOf' method of objects that support acquisition. A recent change to the access validation machinery made this bug begin to affect security restrictions. The bug, with the change to validation, made it possible to access Zope objects via acquisition that a user would not otherwise have access to. This issue could allow users with enough internal knowledge of Zope to perform actions higher in the object hierarchy than they should be able to.

We *highly* recommend that any Zope site running Zope 2.3.0 final or any alpha or beta version of 2.3.0 or 2.3.1 beta 1 have this hotfix product installed to mitigate the issue. Zope 2.3.1 beta 2 will contain a fix for the issue, at which time the hotfix can be removed. Zope versions prior to 2.3.0 are not affected by this issue.

- http://www.zope.org/Products/Zope/Hotfix_2001-03-08/README.txt

- http://www.zope.org/Products/Zope/Hotfix_2001-03-08/Hotfix_2001-03-08.tgz

Brian Lloyd        
Software Engineer  540.371.6909
Digital Creations  http://www.digicool.com