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Part 3 - Adobe hotfix released for "Serious security threat for ColdFusion servers"

Note: This blog post is from 2013. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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.
Adobe has come out with a new security hotfix for a very serious attack on ColdFusion servers which had hit many (perhaps most) CF shops over the past couple of weeks, and it's vital that all shops apply that fix. (Even if you think you've protected yourself in other ways

There is a new Adobe CF blog entry pointing to the new hotfix, and I point that out rather than the technote for the hotfix itself, because as often is the case, there has been some useful discussion related to applying the fix. Indeed, there's a warning I've shared there about a problem (hopefully temporary) with the hotfix file for users of ColdFusion 9.0.2. (Update: the confusion about 9.0.2 is resolved. The technote has been corrected. See the comments in the Adobe blog entry for more details.)

Users of ColdFusion 10, 9.0.2, 9.0.1, and 9.0 should certainly proceed to implement the fix.

I address several questions and other observations about this hotfix below.

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Part 2 - Serious security threat for ColdFusion servers [now covered by a hotfix]

Note: This blog post is from 2013. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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.
Since I posted my entry earlier today about a Serious security threat for #ColdFusion servers [not now covered by a hotfix], I have had many questions and discussions which lead me to share more info.

At first I was adding these as updates to the previous entry, but I fear that some who may have read it earlier in the day may then miss some of this new info, thus this "Part 2". You will definitely want to read part 1 before proceeding here.

[Update: And since writing this entry 2 weeks ago, Adobe has indeed now come out with a hotfix. I have more to say about that in the new Part 3: Adobe hotfix released for "Serious security threat for #ColdFusion servers". While you should proceed to get that fix in place, you'll likely benefit from reading parts 1, 2, and 3, as there's more discussed than just the thread and fix, itself, which could benefit you down the road.]

Among the new information shared below are such things as how the hack worked (not too much detail, though), how to determine what the exploit may have exposed, how to handle resolving things for many sites via scripting, how to lock down the /adminapi, /administrator, and /componentutils directories, and most important, why you should not skip all this just because "we already block all access to the CFIDE/adminapi" (and /administrator and /componentutils)". There may be exposure you're not considering.

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Serious security threat for ColdFusion servers [now covered by a hotfix]

Note: This blog post is from 2013. 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.
Hey folks, there's a fairly serious security threat out in the wild, and you may want to check if your server's been hit. (It may be old news to some, but for now it's hitting people in the past week or so.) It's been confirmed to have hit at least CF9 (9.01 and 9.0.2) servers, but it seems it would apply to as well to CF10 or down to CF 7, as it leverages the Admin API.

And note that it's NOT one that you're protected against by having applied CF security hotfixes. (Updated Jan 15 2013, as Adobe now has a hotfix for this. More below.)

There's quite a bit for you to consider regarding this recent threat, as I discuss here.

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All My Blog Entries for 2012 (all but 3 about ColdFusion)

Note: This blog post is from 2012. 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.
Following up my last blog entry (highlighting the top 10 most-viewed entries for my blog this year), here's a listing instead of all the entries I've done this year, if it may help someone more easily review if they missed any that might be interesting.

I present the list in two forms: first, just a list of all the entries (31 of them), and second, broken down by category, in case some category may be more interesting to you.

The entries

Here are the 31 entries, in descending order by date.

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Most-viewed ColdFusion blog entries of 2012

Note: This blog post is from 2012. 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 the year comes to a close, many bloggers take a moment to document the most-viewed entries of the year on their blog. In that spirit, here are the top-viewed entries of the year for my blog.

I have more to say about the list (and such lists) below, but for those who like to "get to the point", here's the list:

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Ever find the ColdFusion Server Monitor "start" buttons missing? Just refresh...

Note: This blog post is from 2012. 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.
Have you ever opened the ColdFusion Enterprise Server monitor, only to find that all the pods on the front page are blank? More specifically, have you noticed that the "start" buttons at the top are not there? See below for an example. The good news is that there's an easy "solution" to get it working correctly again.

This entry discusses the problem and solution.

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Clearing the ColdFusion template cache programmatically

Note: This blog post is from 2012. 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.
I was asked today how one might clear the template cache ColdFusion template cache programmatically, as opposed to clicking the button in the CF Admin (Caching) page. The good news is that pretty much anything done in the CF Admin can be done programmatically, via the CF Adminapi, since CF 7. And there is in fact an AdminAPI method to clear the template cache. I'll show the code in a moment.

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What's the situation with ColdFusion and Java 7, Java 6 updates, Windows 8, and OS X Mountain Lion?

Note: This blog post is from 2012. 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.
I see the above questions all the time on lists, forums, twitter, etc., and while I point out the following when I see them, I wanted to share them here as well, in case others have missed them or might find them by searching.

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Give to help victims of Hurricane Sandy, get a chance to win something

Note: This blog post is from 2012. 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.
The boys at the CFHour podcast, Dave, Scott, and Matt, are running a relief effort for victims of Hurricane Sandy.

If you'll make a donation of any amount to any relief effort devoted to victims of Sandy (like the popular Red Cross texting program), and then let the CFHour guys know about it, you'll be put in a draw to win a copy of CFBuilder 2.

To enter the draw, either or email them at show(at)cfhour(dot)com (the latter was added after the episode, in a reply to a comment on Adam Cameron's blog, where he too is kindly promoting the effort.

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Updates for Dreamweaver, HomeSite, CF Studio for ColdFusion 8, 9, or 10

Note: This blog post is from 2012. 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.
If you may still be using Dreamweaver or HomeSite+ (or its older brother, HomeSite, or its older uncle, ColdFusion Studio), you may find that the tag insight, tag help, tag completion, and other features are not recognizing newer ColdFusion tags and functions, if perhaps you have updated to later versions of ColdFusion since installing those editors.

Well here's good news, that I find many don't seem to know: you don't need to put up with a lack of support for tags and functions for more recent CF versions!

(If as a reader of this entry, you'd want to make sure people know about still other editor/IDE alternatives, I will address that briefly also before we're through.)

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