Malicious Apache Module Injects Iframes
It’s a follow up to my post about server-wide iframe injection attack where I asked for any information about that tricky hack. Thanks to my readers and administrators of infected servers I have some new information about it. Now I know how it works and what is infected, but still have no idea how hackers break into servers, so your input is welcome.
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RFI: Server-wide iframe injections
This post is a request for information.
This summer I come across some clearly infected servers where I can’t figure out how exactly the hack works and what should be done to clean them up and to protect other servers from similar hacks. So I decided to share my information about the issue and hope someone could shed some light on it.
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Tweet Week: August 22-28, 2011
Selected short messages and links you might have missed if you don’t follow me on Twitter.
TimThumb attacks, We Stop Badware Host program, blog scrapers, Apache DOS and workaround »»
Doorways on Non-default Ports — New Trend in Black Hat SEO?
A year ago I blogged about how hackers managed to hijack hundreds of high-profile websites to make them promote online stores that sold pirated software at about 5-10% of a real cost. They used quite a standard scheme that involved cloaking (making spammy links visible only to search engine crawlers) and conditional redirects (visitors from search engines who clicked on specifically-crafted links on compromised sites got redirected to online stores of software pirates)
Despite of all my warnings, most of those site are still hacked and help sell pirated software and steal credit card numbers. This negligence of site/server administrators encouraged cyber criminals to step even further in abusing reputation and resources of compromised servers. This post will be about one of such steps.
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Keygenguru .com Hack in Search Results
Last year I wrote about two elaborate server-wide hacks that hijacked web server (Apache) processes and intermittently served malicious content instead of requested legitimate web pages.
A year later, every now and then I still see servers affected by this sort of hack. I easily recognize recent modification of this attack when I see links to keygenguru .com in Unmask Parasites reports. Those modifications are slightly different from what I described in my goscanpark article. This time not only do the malicious processes serve JavaScript redirect code but also provide some HTML with links to pirated software and movies. This HTML code gets indexed by search engines which helps hackers promote their illegal resources.
Side effect
A side effect of this “black-hat SEO modification” is when people search for domain names of affected sites, they see something like this in search results:
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Beladen – Elusive Web Server Exploit. (information for site owners and hosting providers)
There has not been much buzz about the recent Beladen attack. Although some sources estimated 40,000 infected web sites, it was clearly not as prominent as the Gumblar. To my mind, it’s because of the elusive nature of the Beladen exploit. It is very difficult to detect. It works intermittently. Only a small percentage of site visitors are exposed to malicious content. Many security scanners just overlook it. Most likely the spread of this attack is underestimated.
In this post, I’ll list every fact I know about the Beladen exploit and hope you will add any missing information in the comments. This format proved to be very fruitful in my recent post about the Gumblar exploit where your 150+ comments made my article the most informative online resource about that attack that most other sites (including major media) referred to.
I hope the information you will find here can help site owners and hosting providers understand the nature of the exploit and get rid of it.
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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.
