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"No tears, no glory": Rebecca the webmaster traces a hacking attack to her site

Posted on August 21, 2007 - 17:12 by egeorge

The webmaster of a site that was hacked to distribute badware has teamed up with a volunteer on the StopBadware discussion forum to trace the hack through her site, and share her story with others. Rebecca the webmaster and Jart the volunteer hope their case study of the cleaning and securing of Rebecca's site can help educate other webmasters about dealing with attacks and the bad code and backdoors hackers can leave behind.

Rebecca first learned that something had happened to her site when a badware warning appeared in search results for the site on Google. Following Google's pointers to StopBadware's Security Tips, Rebecca checked her site and found hidden iframes she knew she hadn't inserted. She removed the iframes, but was surprised to learn that the issues on her site went even deeper.

With the help of StopBadware volunteer Jart, Rebecca uncovered subtler hacks, including SQL injections and administrator accounts that gave unknown parties full access to her site. Rebecca outlines the various steps Jart helped her through to determine the extent of the damage to her site, and to regain control by securing the site against future attacks. Now Rebecca is learning from Jart so that she too can help others clean and secure their sites.

The quick case study is well worth the read for any webmaster, whether or not their site has been hacked. Thanks, Rebecca and Jart, for sharing it with us!

Tags: 
community, hacking, securitytips

No Scrolling Necessary

Posted on August 8, 2007 - 17:49 by bweeks

Here at StopBadware.org we're constantly finding examples of common badware attacks. One well used avenue for attack is the bundling of badware into codecs. Through a bit of social engineering these programs will pose as some end-all be-all solution to your problems; from saving you marriage to entertaining you, they'll do it all! The opposite is usually the case, of course, but we usually get a kick out of the kind of ridiculousness that they will presume to solve. Today while looking at a codec offered at hotelcodec.com, we discovered that they held no such pretensions; as their EULA clearly stated:

While we appreciate hotelcodec.com's concise EULA, we don't suggest that users install their codec on their machines.

Tags: 
codec, eula, funny

Consumer Reports on badware's financial impact

Posted on August 7, 2007 - 16:55 by egeorge

Our friends at Consumer Reports* have released a report on the financial impact of online threats, showing that US consumers have lost more than $7 billion in the last two years to threats like viruses, spyware and phishing.

The 2007 "State of the Net" report found that 34 percent of its surveyed subjects had a computer explosed to spyware in the past six months alone.

Consumer Reports also offered some quick tips for consumers:

* Activating protection. Consumers should turn on their operating system's firewall, spam blocker, or other built-in security application if it has one. Also activate spam filtering and other online protection provided by an Internet Service Provider (ISP) or e-mail service.
* Shutting down. Turning off the computer when not using it for long periods (or at least disconnecting the Internet cable) can reduce the chance that a malicious remote computer will access it.
* Using public computers with care. Consumers should not conduct financial or other personal business on computers at libraries, hotels, or airports. The same goes for using a personal computer on a public wireless network.
* Considering Mac. Although Mac owners face the same problems with spam and phishing as Windows users, they have far less to fear from viruses and spyware. Because Macs are less prevalent than Windows-based machines, online criminals get less of a return on their investment when targeting them.
* Watching downloads. The myriad of free utilities, games, and other software on the Internet can be useful, but many are laden with viruses and spyware. Stick to downloads from well-known manufacturers or trusted sites.

You can read the report, plus additional web security information including reviews of security software, in Consumer Reports' September issue.

* Note: Consumer Reports WebWatch serves as an unpaid special advisor to StopBadware.

Tags: 
consumerreports, consumers, financial, reports

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