10 FTP Clients Malware Steals Credentials From
This year, most successful malware attacks against legitimate websites used stolen FTP credentials. I always suggest that you don’t store passwords in your FTP programs where they are easily accessible by any program running on your computer (including malware). For example, in FileZilla, FTP passwords are stored as plain text in configuration files. And FileZilla is not the only FTP client malware authors target in their hunt for website credentials.
In the recent post about Quicksilver malware network, you can read that the trojan behind the infamous iframe injection attack “looks for all kinds of configuration files of ftp programs in their default install paths“. I contacted the researcher and asked if he had a full list of the FTP clients this malware looks for.
And here’s the list »»
Beware: FileZilla Doesn’t Protect Your Passwords
2009 is the year of malware attacks that use stolen FTP credentials to infect legitimate web sites. Hundreds of thousands websites have been hacked this way and suffered from hidden iframe injections, Gumblar, redirections to bogus anti-virus sites, etc.
The success of those attacks is based on the fact that a significant percentage of web surfer are webmasters and site owners themselves. Once a computer of a site owner is infected, malware can steal his/her FTP credentials and use them to make the site distribute malware to unsuspecting visitors, who, in turn, may also be site owners. As a result, we see rapid growth in number of compromised websites.
There are quite a few hypotheses about how cibercriminals steal the credentials: traffic sniffing, using keyloggers, etc. But the most viable is that trojans simply extract everything they need from configuration files of popular FTP programs. Let me show how easy it can be done.
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Why is WordPress 2.8.2 a Critical Update?
WordPress has just released a security update.
WordPress 2.8.2 fixes an XSS vulnerability. Comment author URLs were not fully sanitized when displayed in the admin. This could be exploited to redirect you away from the admin to another site
Unfortunately, the official blog didn’t mention that this upgrade is actually critical and why you should update ASAP. Let me explain this.
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GStats .cn and GCounter .cn – Malicious Code in .js Files
This must be not a new attack (I’ve found an almost year old article that mentions gcounter iframes) but I started to notice it this past weekend. First, on the Google’s Webmaster Forums, then in the Unmask Parasites logs. So I guess it’s a new wave of the attack.
GCounter .cn
When I first encountered a site infected by gcounter, I checked it with Unmask Parasites. Nothing suspicious was found except for the fact that the domain name was blacklisted by Google. I checked the diagnostic page and found this clue:
Malicious software is hosted on 1 domain(s), including gcounter.cn/.
Gumblar/Martuz Aftermath
The Gumblar/Martuz epidemic is currently on decline. Comparing with the last week, this week Unmask Parasites registers only a small fraction of Gumblar infected web sites. And I don’t see any new script mutations.
“Martuz .cn” domain no longer resolve and “gumblar .cn” is defunct (the domain is currently parked). This has stopped the surge of new infections. And the increased global awareness helped webmasters identify the problem and get rid of it.
Recovered sites are still blacklisted
Nonetheless, I can still see that many websites recovered from the gumblar/martuz attack are still blacklisted by Google. Their Safe Browsing diagnostic pages say something like:
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NoScript Helps Reveal Website Exploits – Telegram .com Case
FireFox + NoScript
I usually suggest that you should use FireFox with the NoScript plugin for safer web browsing. This combo will save you from most web threats. Just remember one rule: Never use the “Allow this page” and the “Allow Scripts Globally” options.
NoScript reveals website exploits
NoScript is also a great helper in revealing tricky website exploits.
Let me use the “Telegram .com” case to show how I use it. Continue »»
Vulnerability Advisories for Third-Party Scripts
Building sophisticated websites is pretty easy these days. Whatever you want (blog, forum, eCommerce solution, picture gallery, video sharing site, or even your own social network) – there is a free third party script that you can use to build your site in a matter of hours.
However this ease comes at a price. Unfortunately, no software is perfect. Hackers have a great incentive to find vulnerabilities in popular scripts – if they find a security hole, they can exploit thousands (and sometimes even millions) of websites that use the buggy script. And the fact that most popular script are free Open Source software helps hackers immensely.
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Using Wget to Detect Hijacked Search Engine Traffic
Some time ago I had a series of post about the .htaccess exploit that redirected search engine traffic to bogus Antivirus sites.
This sort of exploit is still very wide-spread. Many site owners wonder why Google blacklists their sites when their web pages are absolutely benign and sites mentioned on Google’s Safe Browsing Diagnostic pages have absolutely nothing to do with their site’s content.
Here is an excerpt from a typical Safe Browsing Diagnostic page for an affected site:
Malicious software is hosted on 5 domain(s), including best-antimalware-pro-scan .com/, fastantimalwareproscanner .com/, fullantispywareproscan .com/.
4 domain(s) appear to be functioning as intermediaries for distributing malware to visitors of this site, including module-antispyware .info/, securedradiostation .cn/, great-antispyware .info/.
When I see multiple antivirus-related domain names in the diagnostics, I almost sure the site has a hacked .htaccess file that redirects search engine traffic to scam sites. Still I need to verify my guess.
Continue »»
About this blog
Occasional posts from the developer of
Unmask Parasites about things that hackers already know and site owners should know (if they don't want to be victims).
Exploit reviews, security tips, and all that jazz.
