Bug in cPanel file manager – Variables being changed

I use cPanel (http://cpanel.net) as my control panel for my websites, along with millions of other people. Recently there was an issue with cPanel. I don’t know what exactly it was – seems like the server was compromised somehow (don’t quote me on it, I got 5 different answers from my webhost while it was happening).

Anyway – after the fix was applied (whatever the serious issue was with cPanel) I was having issues with some of my scripts. Certain variables were being changed when I was using the control panel file manager. For instance, inside my scripts the $password variable was being changed to my cPanel password, environmental variables were being changed, such as: $ENV{’REMOTE_ADDR’}; would change to my ip address when I saved a file using the file manager.

While this is highly annoying in itself as I have to modify variables in dozens of pages of scripts plus change the routines that the variable is used in, I couldn’t find hardly any information on this bug. This issue has nothing to do with my webhost, it’s an issue with the control panel software.

The reason for this post is to provide a link to the location where you can stay informed as to the status of this bug. You can add your email address to the CC: list on cPanel’s Bugzilla and be updated with any changes to the status of this issue.

I don’t know which scripting languages this affects, though I write in perl and the coding pasted on cPanel’s bugzilla page is php.

Hopefully they get this thing fixed soon. . .