Radar · 2024-07
July 2024
A pre-authentication root hole in OpenSSH opens the month, a zero-length request body bypasses Docker authorisation plugins, Apache httpd needs three security releases in seventeen days to fix its own regressions, a faulty endpoint-security update takes out Windows fleets worldwide and Digital Service Standard 2.0 becomes mandatory for new Commonwealth services.
What's on our radar this month: releases, advisories and standards across the stack we run and the platforms we integrate with.
AI platform and models
Sections- notable NIST
NIST ships a generative AI risk profile and a secure-development profile together — nist.gov
Released 26 July 2024 at the 270-day mark of the US AI executive order: NIST AI 600-1, the AI Risk Management Framework Generative AI Profile, naming twelve generative-AI-specific risks with more than 200 suggested mitigation actions; NIST SP 800-218A, a secure software development framework profile for generative AI and dual-use foundation models covering malicious training-data threats; NIST AI 100-5 on global standards engagement; and Dioptra, an open-source testbed for measuring adversarial-attack impact.
Map any retrieval or AI service risk register against AI 600-1's twelve risk categories, and check build pipelines for AI components against SP 800-218A. These are the first widely citable control-style references for generative AI risk, and Australian agencies lean on NIST framings where no local equivalent exists.
- notable Bedrock
Llama 3.1 405B reaches Bedrock in Oregon only — aws.amazon.com
AWS made Llama 3.1 405B generally available in Amazon Bedrock on 26 July 2024, in US West (Oregon). Asia Pacific (Sydney), which had received Bedrock itself in April 2024, was not included.
For any workload with an Australian data-residency condition, confirm model-by-model region availability rather than assuming Bedrock parity. AWS named US West (Oregon) as the only region at general availability.
- fyi OpenAI
GPT-4o mini resets the floor price and ships an instruction hierarchy — openai.com
Launched 18 July 2024 at US$0.15 per million input and US$0.60 per million output tokens — more than 60 per cent cheaper than GPT-3.5 Turbo — with a 128K context window and 82 per cent on MMLU. OpenAI says GPT-4o mini in the API is the first of its models to apply the instruction hierarchy method, intended to improve resistance to jailbreaks, prompt injection and system-prompt extraction.
Re-cost any summarisation or classification work sitting behind search or forms. The instruction-hierarchy claim is the more interesting half: a prompt-injection mitigation built into the model matters to anyone exposing a model to untrusted page content.
Security and edge
Sections- critical OpenSSH
Pre-authentication root code execution in OpenSSH on glibc Linux — nvd.nist.gov
Disclosed 1 July 2024, CVE-2024-6387 is an unauthenticated signal-handler race in OpenSSH's server, triggered by failing to authenticate within a set time period. NVD records it as a regression of CVE-2006-5051. The OpenSSH 9.8 notes say Portable OpenSSH 8.5p1 through 9.7p1 may allow arbitrary code execution with root privileges, with successful exploitation demonstrated on 32-bit Linux/glibc. Qualys named the issue regreSSHion and documents LoginGraceTime as the trigger.
Confirm every glibc Linux host runs OpenSSH 9.8p1 or a distribution backport. Qualys documents LoginGraceTime=0 as an interim mitigation that trades the race for a denial-of-service against MaxStartups.
- critical Apache
Apache httpd needs three security releases in seventeen days — httpd.apache.org
2.4.60 on 1 July 2024 fixed eight issues including CVE-2024-38475, which Apache rates important: a mod_rewrite substitution reaching unintended filesystem locations, plus a Windows UNC server-side request forgery. 2.4.60 introduced a source-disclosure regression with AddType-configured handlers, patched in 2.4.61 on 3 July — and that fix was incomplete, requiring 2.4.62 on 17 July.
Verify origin web servers are on 2.4.62 or later, not merely "patched in July". Re-test rewrite rules using backreferences or variables in the first path segment, and audit any use of the UnsafePrefixStat escape hatch.
- notable Incident
ASD advises the global Windows outage was a faulty update, not an attack — cyber.gov.au
A third-party endpoint-security content update on 19 July 2024 caused mass Windows bluescreens, shutdowns and boot failures worldwide, hitting airlines, hospitals, banks and government services. ASD's ACSC published an advisory relaying the vendor's statement that it was a faulty update rather than a cyber security incident, pointed to the vendor's remediation guidance including the BitLocker recovery complication, and warned specifically that malicious websites and unofficial "fix" code were being distributed to exploit the recovery scramble.
Check whether your change process allows a third-party security agent to auto-deploy content updates to every host simultaneously. Pre-stage BitLocker recovery keys and an out-of-band communications channel for mass-remediation scenarios.
Standards and compliance
Sections- critical DTA
Digital Service Standard 2.0 becomes mandatory for new Commonwealth services — digital.gov.au
From 1 July 2024 the updated Digital Service Standard applies to new public-facing and staff-facing services owned by non-corporate Commonwealth entities. Phase 2 extends it to existing public-facing services from 1 July 2025, with existing staff-facing services out of scope. The Standard is tied to the Investment Oversight Framework for in-scope investments.
For any new Commonwealth service starting after 1 July 2024, confirm the delivery plan evidences the Standard's criteria. Then start scoping the Phase 2 assessment for existing public-facing sites — with a July 2025 date already on the clock, remediation planning stopped being optional here.
- notable EU AI Act
The EU AI Act is published in the Official Journal — eur-lex.europa.eu
Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 was published in the Official Journal on 12 July 2024 — the event that starts every downstream compliance clock, with entry into force twenty days later and staged application of prohibitions, general-purpose obligations and high-risk requirements thereafter.
Use the Official Journal date and regulation number when citing the Act. If you supply AI features into the EU, confirm which staged obligation date applies to your classification.
- fyi DP-REG
Australia's four digital regulators set 2024-26 priorities and flag AI under emerging risks — oaic.gov.au
Published 25 July 2024, the Digital Platform Regulators Forum communique — covering the ACCC, ACMA, the eSafety Commissioner and the OAIC — set three goals: build capacity, promote regulatory coherence, and respond to emerging risks and opportunities. Under that third goal sits a priority on understanding, assessing and responding to the benefits, risks and harms of technology, including AI models. The ACCC flagged AI services against competition and consumer law including misleading advertising, scams and fake reviews.
Use it to work out which of the four regulators owns a given AI or platform risk question — it is the clearest single statement of how they intend to divide and coordinate oversight, and a signal that coherence work rather than new legislation was the mid-2024 posture.
CMS and platforms
Sections- notable WordPress
WordPress 6.6 makes plugin auto-updates roll back on failure — wordpress.org
Released 16 July 2024, WordPress 6.6 shipped plugin auto-updates that roll back when an update fails, colour and font sets for multiplying design variations within one theme, a side-by-side page list and preview in the Site Editor, per-instance overrides for synced patterns, and 58 accessibility fixes.
Re-evaluate any blanket "auto-updates off" policy now that rollback exists, and test the rollback path in staging before relying on it. Fear of unattended breakage is precisely why auto-updates were switched off across government estates, and this addresses it directly.
- notable Drupal
Drupal 11's release candidate confirms a 10.3-first upgrade path — drupal.org
Drupal 11.0.0-rc1 shipped 11 July 2024 with Symfony updated to 7.1.2 and core development requiring Node.js 20. The upgrade path is constrained: sites on 10.2.x or earlier must move to 10.3.0 or later before updating to 11, because every update hook added before 10.3.0 was removed.
Audit Drupal sites for anything below 10.3.0 and schedule the 10.3 hop before any Drupal 11 work. "Wait for Drupal 11" was never a valid plan for a site on 10.2 — the release candidate is the point at which that became concrete.
- notable Drupal
Stored XSS in the View Password module via unvalidated CSS classes — drupal.org
SA-CONTRIB-2024-026, published 31 July 2024, rates a cross-site scripting flaw in the View Password module less critical (8/25): the module did not validate administrator-supplied CSS classes on its settings form. Versions below 6.0.4 are affected, and exploitation requires the administer view password permission.
Update to 6.0.4 if installed, then audit other contributed modules that accept CSS class or attribute strings from admin forms — treating an admin-only field as trusted is the recurring shape of contrib XSS in Drupal government builds.
Update, January 2025: Drupal's advisory now lists CVE-2024-13262 and rates the flaw moderately critical (13/25), up from less critical (8/25).
Supply chain, CI/CD and IaC
Sections- notable Docker
A zero-length request body bypasses Docker authorisation plugins — github.com
CVE-2024-41110, disclosed 23 July 2024 at CVSS 9.9, let an attacker with Docker API access set Content-Length to zero so the daemon forwarded the request to an authorisation plugin without the body, causing the plugin to approve an action it would otherwise deny — including privilege escalation. Affected across the 19.03 to 27.1.0 lines and patched in 23.0.15, 26.1.5, 27.1.1 and backports. It is a regression of a flaw originally fixed in January 2019.
Confirm Docker Engine is on 27.1.1 or a relevant backport. If you use authorisation plugins on shared CI hosts, treat pre-patch Docker API access as equivalent to unrestricted daemon access and rotate anything reachable from it.
- notable PyPI
PyPI publishes an incident report on a leaked administrator token — blog.pypi.org
On 8 July 2024 PyPI published an incident report covering a leaked GitHub personal access token belonging to a PyPI administrator's own account. The token was revoked immediately on discovery, and PyPI reported no evidence of malicious use.
Audit long-lived personal access tokens across your own organisation: scope them down, set expiry, and enable secret-scanning push protection on any repository that touches publishing credentials.
- notable Dependabot
Dependabot moves onto Actions, and keeps a legacy path where Actions is disabled — github.blog
From 10 July 2024 GitHub began migrating Dependabot pull-request generation to run as GitHub Actions workflows for Enterprise Cloud and Free, Pro and Teams accounts with Actions enabled, promising faster runs and self-hosted runner support. Dependabot runs do not count against Actions minutes. As at 10 July 2024, GitHub said repositories with Actions enabled should see the new workflow by the beginning of September.
If your organisation disables Actions by policy, the changelog says Dependabot continues on the legacy compute provider — confirm pull requests are still appearing, and do not treat "Actions disabled" as "Dependabot has stopped".
Languages, runtimes and frameworks
Sections- notable Node.js
Node.js patches a Windows command-injection bypass that ignores the shell option — nodejs.org
The releases of 8 July 2024 — 18.20.4, 20.15.1 and 22.4.1 — fixed five issues. CVE-2024-36138 is an incomplete fix for the earlier BatBadBut flaw: on Windows, child_process.spawn and spawnSync mishandled batch files across all possible extensions, allowing arbitrary command injection even without the shell option enabled. CVE-2024-22020 allowed the network-import restriction to be bypassed via data URLs, and three low-severity issues affected the experimental permission model.
Confirm Node is on 18.20.4, 20.15.1 or 22.4.1 everywhere including CI runner and container base images, and audit child_process.spawn calls on Windows for user-influenced arguments — "we don't use shell: true" was not a defence here.
- notable Go
Go's HTTP client can be left in an invalid state by an Expect header — groups.google.com
Go 1.22.5 and 1.21.12, released 2 July 2024, fix CVE-2024-24791. The HTTP/1.1 client mishandled a server answering an Expect: 100-continue request with a non-informational status, leaving the connection in an invalid state so the next request on it fails. It is exploitable against ReverseProxy deployments to cause denial of service through repeated connection failures.
Rebuild Go services on 1.22.5 or 1.21.12, prioritising anything using httputil.ReverseProxy — a Go reverse proxy or edge service is a very common shape for CDN-adjacent tooling, and this is remotely triggerable.
- fyi Rust
Rust 1.80 turns silent feature-gate typos into warnings — blog.rust-lang.org
Released 25 July 2024, Rust 1.80.0 stabilised LazyCell and LazyLock for lazy initialisation, exclusive range patterns in match, and checking of cfg names and values against declared Cargo features.
Nothing for most readers. If a Rust build in CI started failing in late July 2024, check the toolchain version against 1.80.0 before debugging your own code. The new cfg checking is good hygiene and warns on unexpected cfg names and values including mistyped Cargo features, but Rust's release notes say new FromIterator implementations for Box<str> break type inference in some cases, including versions of the time crate before 0.3.35.
Static site and web tooling
Sections- notable Hugo
Hugo 0.130.0 swaps its EXIF library — discourse.gohugo.io
Released 29 July 2024, Hugo 0.130.0 added trigonometric and angle helper functions and replaced its EXIF library implementation. Homebrew, Snap, Docker and Debian packages were updated at announcement; Ubuntu and Fedora packages lagged.
If you build a Hugo site with EXIF-dependent image processing, visually diff image output after upgrading — the library swap is a quiet behaviour change.
- fyi Astro
Astro ships experimental Server Islands — astro.build
Astro 4.12, released 18 July 2024, introduced Server Islands as an experimental feature: components marked server:defer are rendered by the server through a dedicated endpoint and injected into otherwise static HTML, letting one page mix fully cacheable output with per-request dynamic fragments. The release also added first and last URLs from the paginate helper and an inferRemoteSize image utility.
If you have rejected static generation for a page because of one dynamic fragment, re-test it with Server Islands. Treat it as experimental and pin the Astro version.
Build on what the radar tracks
Integrations
How the CMSs, static site generators, and CI/CD tooling the radar tracks work with Quant.
Learn moreAI applications
Build RAG applications, chatbots, semantic search, and AI-powered features on Australian infrastructure.
Learn moreFor developers
REST APIs, GitHub Actions, and SDKs — deploy static sites or containers with full API access.
Learn more