Daily Archives: November 25, 2024

Offtopic Rant: Clients that ghost you.

Ghost illustrated on black background

A friend referred me to her friend for some WordPress support. While most of the issue was PEBKAC, I learned that there are still dated-looking WordPress sites, that use vulnerable PHP and some wonky CSS custom editing to get solutions. While I was able to hard edit a PHP file and make the client changes, I refused to update the PHP version of her cPanel site because I was not the theme creator and not comfortable making a change that could result in a borked theme or live site used for business income. I left the requested work* resolved and completed, and further changes to the “footer”.
But the client never paid, did not ask for invoice nor had I a chance to bill for the time after cancelling any further support. I’ll chalk it up for no good deed goes unpunished.

The lesson here is not only being leery of unstable business owners that fail to understand, aka ignore, their website underpinnings, but the main problem was actually caused by the website user/owner clicking a feature that resulted in a change to editing the page. Visual is versus Text. So I recommend, take a course in Beginning WordPress content creation. Knowing some HTML is even better. Plus if you fire/cancel your Websupport person, you better realize, they won’t ever help again.

Mac OS 15.1.1 Update

Color rays with Sequoia text

Another update, this time about security and Webkit. As noted, Apple never discloses the changes when its about security.

Released November 19, 2024

JavaScriptCore

Available for: macOS Sequoia

Impact: Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited on Intel-based Mac systems.

Description: The issue was addressed with improved checks.

WebKit Bugzilla: 283063

CVE-2024-44308: Clément Lecigne and Benoît Sevens of Google’s Threat Analysis Group

WebKit

Available for: macOS Sequoia

Impact: Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to a cross site scripting attack. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited on Intel-based Mac systems.

Description: A cookie management issue was addressed with improved state management.

WebKit Bugzilla: 283095

CVE-2024-44309: Clément Lecigne and Benoît Sevens of Google’s Threat Analysis Group