Serious security breach on Developer Blog

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Sage
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#16 Post by Sage »

No respite, either:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/11 ... infection/
This is looking like a battle of intellects.

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dvw86
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#17 Post by dvw86 »

Barry,
You may want to read this blog post by Arnold Kim.
http://normalkid.com/2007/11/20/
Arnold (Arn) is the creator of macrumors.com. It is a very popular rumor and news site focusing on the Apple computer company. He has had many similar issues with PHP based sites including Word Press. His final solution was to use vBulletin, which he has been happy with. Some samples of his post reguarding Word Press include the following.
Wordpress Sucks, and Other Thoughts (Including Why I’m on Default Theme)
The problem was that there were known exploits in every version… and it was like holding up a sign to anyone out there to “Please Hack Me

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prehistoric
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adding insult to injury

#18 Post by prehistoric »

@John Doe,

When I tried to notify a friend, (retired sys admin,) about that European site, his ISP identified the message as spam or a virus. This was a short, hand-typed, text-only message with no attachments. (I suppose I should have used a sophisticated method of hiding content, like ROT13.)

When the message bounced I got a message from my ISP advising me I had sent contaminated mail and to tell their Postmaster if there had been an error. When I did as requested, that message was also rejected because the Postmaster mail box was full.

I think I finally got the message through by splitting the offending text and telling the recipient how to reassemble it. (Wait, let me check for another bounce.)

Aren't ISPs helpful in these situations?

prehistoric

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willhunt
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#19 Post by willhunt »

how do I ban this ip so my machine won;t even go to that IP?
[url=http://hostfile.org/icepak.pet]176 Icewm Themes :!:[/url]
[url=http://tinyurl.com/39fl3x]vlc-0.8.6c-i586.pet[/url]
[url=http://tinyurl.com/2q7cbp]vlc-0.8.6c-i586.pet[/url]

wingruntled

#20 Post by wingruntled »

willhunt
you could add the IP address hosts name to your /etc/hosts file.
Just edit to the END of your hosts file with the last two lines as I posted below:

127.0.0.1 localhost puppypc

Code: Select all

127.0.0.1  host-84-221-65-76.cust-adsl.tiscali.it
127.0.0.1  a80-186-120-215.elisa-laajakaista.fi

John Doe
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Mahmod AbdAllah el Gashmi Linux Firewall Rules

#21 Post by John Doe »

willhunt wrote:how do I ban this ip so my machine won;t even go to that IP?
He owns 88.255.94.0 - 88.255.94.255 (that's a T1).

This in a script should work nice. Perhaps someone else has tips for making it better, or in less steps?

Code: Select all

iptables -s 88.244.94.0/88.244.94.255 -A INPUT -j DROP
iptables -d 88.244.94.0/88.244.94.255 -A INPUT -j DROP
iptables -s 88.244.94.0/88.244.94.255 -A FORWARD -j DROP
iptables -d 88.244.94.0/88.244.94.255 -A FORWARD -j DROP
iptables -s 88.244.94.0/88.244.94.255 -A OUTPUT -j DROP
iptables -d 88.244.94.0/88.244.94.255 -A OUTPUT -j DROP

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willhunt
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#22 Post by willhunt »

Thanks for the quick answer :)
So am I to take it this kinda behavior is acceptable in turkey?
I've been reading and it seems a lotta people know about him
and his hacks.?
[url=http://hostfile.org/icepak.pet]176 Icewm Themes :!:[/url]
[url=http://tinyurl.com/39fl3x]vlc-0.8.6c-i586.pet[/url]
[url=http://tinyurl.com/2q7cbp]vlc-0.8.6c-i586.pet[/url]

raffy
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index changed

#23 Post by raffy »

Barry and all,

I now see that puppylinux.org's index file was also changed (I did not have access to FTP last night).

IMHO, this is a major breach of webhosting security, not just of Wordpress. It's a servage.net problem (or its own host).

Caneri
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#24 Post by Caneri »

Well I got nailed again from Taiwan(maybe)..also attacked my local router a few days ago but I wasn't thinking it to be significant. (wrong I guess).

It may be more than servage as it seems many servers are being hit...judging from what Ive been reading on security zines.

Security levels are at code red on many sites I've seen with hundreds of thousands of commercial/university and city servers being targeted and breached.

It seems to be apache servers that are not up to date...this is where they get into database, php etc.

What a pain!

Eric
[color=darkred][i]Be not afraid to grow slowly, only be afraid of standing still.[/i]
Chinese Proverb[/color]

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willhunt
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#25 Post by willhunt »

Caneri wrote
It seems to be apache servers that are not up to date...this is where they get into database, php etc.
it was my understanding that it was a bad cPanel or perl module
did I get this wrong?
[url=http://hostfile.org/icepak.pet]176 Icewm Themes :!:[/url]
[url=http://tinyurl.com/39fl3x]vlc-0.8.6c-i586.pet[/url]
[url=http://tinyurl.com/2q7cbp]vlc-0.8.6c-i586.pet[/url]

John Doe
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Re: index changed

#26 Post by John Doe »

raffy wrote:IMHO, this is a major breach of webhosting security, not just of Wordpress. It's a servage.net problem (or its own host).
I'm also starting to think this might be bigger than Wordpress.

I've been reading the comments in the link Sage posted and some of the links they lead to. It seems it might all relate to a new problem that seemed to surface around 11-25-2007 where one can install a rootkit on certain linux boxes via apache/php. One of the things that is happening is the hackers are adding kernel modules that inject code in pages as they are served. Anything else could be going on at that point also. Just cause one groups exploits one way, doesn't mean they all do it the same way.

This might get pretty big. Further fueled by the fact that most of the people running linux have this caviler attitude towards security that amounts to "that can't happen to me, I run linux. That only happens to the idiots that run WinDoze.".

It's too bad we can't take a survey of servage.net users and see if this is a problem for everyone. Might be that their box is the right combo for this exploit. I tried to telnet to see what version they are running but they don't report it. Just that they are running Apache.

John Doe
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#27 Post by John Doe »

willhunt wrote:Caneri wrote
It seems to be apache servers that are not up to date...this is where they get into database, php etc.
it was my understanding that it was a bad cPanel or perl module
did I get this wrong?
I ran across that also.

Does servage.net use cPanel?

Caneri, does your site have cPanel?

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cb88
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#28 Post by cb88 »

i am happily posting from vector linux...! got my conexant modem working with the 14.4 kbs driver..

anyway there has been talk over at ubuntu of a boottime kernel compilation for improved proformance (heh they really need it don't they) this would make kernel module unneeded for most....

just thought you guys might find that interesting...
Taking Puppy Linux to the limit of perfection. meanwhile try "puppy pfix=duct_tape" kernel parem eater.
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Caneri
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#29 Post by Caneri »

@John Doe,

My host has it's own custom panel and doesn't use cPanel.

They call it XL6 (inhouse name). If they are right they tell me the perl exploit will not work or be very effective here...but I take that with a grain of salt.

They also tell me older software has been a problem across many hosts...and wordpress is a major problem.

Eric
[color=darkred][i]Be not afraid to grow slowly, only be afraid of standing still.[/i]
Chinese Proverb[/color]

John Doe
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#30 Post by John Doe »

thanks for the info Caneri and sorry the intrusive questions. I'm just trying to get a really good idea of what's going on so we can all get it fixed and move forward with a sense of security.

for several years, years ago, i used to work on network exploitation with friends. we never messed anyone's stuff up (with one exception) or wrote stupid scripts to spam crap everywhere. that sort of behavior just pisses me off. we were the types who would write you and tell you to get something fixed to protect yourself. it's a shame there are jerks out there that would do such petty things. they probably sell it as some type of "service" to. :roll:

wingruntled

#31 Post by wingruntled »

it's a shame there are jerks out there that would do such petty things. they probably sell it as some type of "service" to.
That or some parent will get arrested by Homeland for what their unsupervised child found on some underground site. :twisted:

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Ted Dog
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Satellite signal goes far

#32 Post by Ted Dog »

I noted that MAC addresses to filter out everybody else's traffic can be changed via software on DVB based two way traffic. It is not that hard for a well funded black hacker to capture all traffic via someone else's MAC and decode it remotely. It may be a good idea to ssh to your remote servers and change password. Using secure FTP as needed.
Many of your hosts have been hit, think about it.

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Lobster
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#33 Post by Lobster »

:) Barry and many of the coders here would class themselves as hackers. However it is used in the sense of a coder. In popular language hacker means someone who is a 'black hat coder' or cracker (breaking systems or into them).

I was recently 'hacking' into one of my own computers - A second hand Mac with password protection . . . that makes me a 'white hat' cracker.
Most of us are probably crackers at some point in our computer usage.
(in my case completely crackers!) :wink:

The fact that Barrys sites have been targetted by the insertion of porn links, gives an insight into the motivation and reason. They probably think of it as nothing worse than pasting ads over a disused building.

Let us make some good of this. How can we proactive and supportive? 8)
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nic2109
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#34 Post by nic2109 »

Sometime pretty soon, when a consensus emerges, it would be very helpful if someone could summarize the things us ordinary penguins need to do to protect both ourselves and everyone else we may inadvertently spray crap out to. I guess that it's servers that are most at risk, but as it's so easy to leave a port open (for example) I think we would all value a checklist of what to set in Puppy.

I'm afraid that I am guilty of smug complacency relying on (a) the firewall in my router and (b) "it's Linux so I don't have a problem". Bah, such naive folly!

I recall that Fedora had 2 modes when installing: "Normal" or "SE" where SE is something like "Secure Edition" or "Security Enhanced". Is it time to create an SE Puppy? Or is that only relevant for Servers? Or maybe it's already possible and all that's needed is a bit of RTFM?

Education needed, wanted, and requested. Please!

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MU
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#35 Post by MU »

Again, this is not a Linux-bug, but a PHP or better application problem.
A firewall or such would not help in this case, because the bugs or better the way things were programmed are an open invitation to do everything on the machine that runs it.

Also note, that this usually just affects Web-applications.
A Desktop-User will not be infected by such mechanisms.

Unfortunately, such things make peole very frighten.
Even my colleage reported, that he found forummessages somewhere else about this "Linux-trojan", which it is definately not.

One thing that is important is, that the firefox-team resolves the problem of 100% processor usage on this file not found error.

This is nasty (though not dangerous in a way that a virus would be installed or so).

Mark

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