WordPress 6.5.5

WordPress 6.5.5 is now available!

This release features three security fixes. Because this is a security release, it is recommended that you update your sites immediately. This minor release also includes 3 bug fixes in Core.

You can download WordPress 6.5.5 from WordPress.org, or visit your WordPress Dashboard, click “Updates”, and then click “Update Now”. If you have sites that support automatic background updates, the update process will begin automatically.

WordPress 6.5.5 is a short-cycle release. The next major release will be version 6.6 which is scheduled for July 16, 2024.

For more information on WordPress 6.5.5, please visit the HelpHub site.

Security updates included in this release

The security team would like to thank the following people for responsibly reporting vulnerabilities, and allowing them to be fixed in this release:

• A cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability affecting the HTML API reported by Dennis Snell of the WordPress Core Team, along with Alex Concha and Grzegorz (Greg) Ziółkowski of the WordPress security team.
• A cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability affecting the Template Part block reported independently by Rafie Muhammad of Patchstack and during a third party security audit.
• A path traversal issue affecting sites hosted on Windows reported independently by Rafie M & Edouard L of Patchstack, David Fifield, x89, apple502j, and mishre.

Thank you to these WordPress contributors

This release was led by Aaron Jorbin.

WordPress 6.5.5 would not have been possible without the contributions of the following people. Their asynchronous coordination to deliver maintenance and security fixes into a stable release is a testament to the power and capability of the WordPress community.

Aaron Jorbin, Alex Concha, Andrew Ozz, bernhard-reiter, Colin Stewart, David Baumwald, Dennis Snell, Grant M. Kinney, Greg Ziółkowski, Jb Audras, Jonathan Desrosiers, Matias Ventura, Miguel Fonseca, Peter Wilson, Rajin Sharwar, Scott Reilly, Tonya Mork

How to contribute

To get involved in WordPress core development, head over to Trac, pick a ticket, and join the conversation in the #core Slack channel. Need help? Check out the Core Contributor Handbook.

Already testing WordPress 6.6? The fourth beta is now available (zip) and it contains these security fixes. For more on 6.6, see the beta 3 announcement post. Learn more about testing WordPress 6.6 here.

Props to Paul Kevan, Ehtisham Siddiqui, Alex Concha, Tonya Mork, and Angela Jin for reviewing.