A serious security problem in data serialization was recently disclosed which applies to all versions of R prior to R 4.4.0. This is considered a high risk vulnerability. UW Cybersecurity recommends that everyone switch to R 4.4.0 as soon as possible.
You can access the newest version of R with the command ‘R44’. We will make this the default version of (when you just type ‘R’) on May 25th. The current version can reached with the command ‘R42’, but we encourage people to switch as soon as they can.
Every new version of R obsoletes a few packages, but let us know if there are any missing packages in 4.4.0 that you believe are still maintained.
People who are used to installing their own packages should update their PATH to include this version of GCC: /s/pkg/linux64/gcc/11.4.0/bin
Historically we have kept a few older versions of R around to give people time to transition to the newest version. We will begin removing access to many of these in two weeks. If there is a particular version you need to keep access to, please contact us at sysreq@biostat.wisc.edu.
If you maintain your own version of R, such as through Anaconda, please upgrade as soon as you can.