In the middle of September 2023, vulnerability advisory resources disclosed the details of an Unauthenticated Stored XSS vulnerability in the tagDiv Composer (the companion plugin for the popular tagDiv premium themes Newspaper and Newsmag). Shortly after that, we started noticing Continue reading Balada Injector Targets Unpatched tagDiv Plugin, Newspaper Theme & WordPress Admins
Japanese SEO Spam, also known as “Japanese keyword hack” or “Japanese SEO poisoning,” is a spammy search engine optimization technique used by black hat SEO artists to make a website show up in search engine results for spam keywords in Continue reading How to Find & Fix Japanese SEO Spam
MageCart infections most often come in the form of complex, obfuscated JavaScript injected into Magento database tables such as core_config_data, or as malicious plugins or core file injections installed into WordPress / WooCommerce environments (which are increasingly common, and may Continue reading Decoding Magecart: Credit Card Skimmers Concealed Through Pixels & Images
Since September 2022, our team has been tracking a bogus URL shortener redirect campaign that started with just a single domain: ois[.]is. By the beginning of 2023, this malware campaign had expanded to over a hundred domain names to redirect Continue reading Bogus URL Shorteners Go Mobile-Only in AdSense Fraud Campaign
Today’s story starts much the same as many others on this blog: A new client came to us reporting that credit card details were being compromised from their checkout page. The website owner had even been contacted by a major Continue reading Compromised OpenCart Payment Module Steals Credit Card Information
A vast majority of website malware employ the ever-familiar HTTP/HTTPS protocols for its malicious activities. But, we also periodically confront more interesting hybrid malware leveraging various other internet protocols. For example, malware sending email spam, DDoS tools creating floods of Continue reading From Google DNS to Tech Support Scam Sites: Unmasking the Malware Trail
Conducting an external website scan for indicators of compromise is one of the easiest ways to identify security issues. While remote scanners may not provide as comprehensive of a scan as server-side scanners, they allow users to instantly identify malicious Continue reading SiteCheck Remote Website Scanner — Mid-Year 2023 Report
This investigation started with a small and quite simple piece of PHP malware found on a hacked website. We located the following PHP code, responsible for injecting spammy links, within a wp-includes.php file: This script fetches a list of links Continue reading Massive Google Colaboratory Abuse: Gambling and Subscription Scam
During a recent investigation, our malware remediation team encountered a variant of a common malware injection that has been active since at least 2017. The malware was found hijacking the website’s traffic, redirecting visitors via a parked third-party domain to Continue reading Malicious Injection Redirects Traffic via Parked Domain
Ever had an uninvited guest crash your party, resulting in chaos, confusion, and some unhappy visitors? Well, SEO spam is that party crasher — just for websites. Why should you care, you ask? Well, just imagine your meticulously crafted website Continue reading Spamdexing: What is SEO Spam & How to Remove It
Readers of this blog will know that attackers are constantly finding new ways to hide their malware and avoid detection; after all, that’s what good malware does best! We have recently observed attackers leveraging both excessive amounts of unicode as Continue reading Remote Code Execution Backdoor Uses Unicode Obfuscation & Non-Standard File Extensions
Welcome to another installment in helping website owners secure their digital assets, this time with a focus on the world of ecommerce. If you’re an ecommerce website owner, you’re likely aware that online stores face a unique set of challenges Continue reading How to Secure Your Online Store: A Ecommerce Security Primer
Welcome to the world of keyloggers, where every keystroke you make may be watched, recorded, and potentially used against you! Now that we’ve got your attention, let’s dive into the somewhat unsettling realm of these sneaky little digital spies. In Continue reading What Is a Keylogger?
On May 11th, 2023, the very popular WordPress plugin Essential Addons for Elementor released a patch for a critical privilege escalation vulnerability, initially discovered by PatchStack. The technical details of this vulnerability can be found on their recent blog post. Continue reading Vulnerability in Essential Addons for Elementor Leads to Mass Infection
It’s not often that we get the opportunity to write about website defacements on this blog. Defacements — where a website homepage is replaced with a hacker logo or some sort of political or religious message — are usually fairly Continue reading Websites Defaced with Belarusian Bottled Water Company Content
In November, 2022, my colleague Ben Martin described how hackers were using zipped files and encrypted WordPress options stored in the database to inject SocGholish scripts into compromised WordPress sites. A bit later, we documented minor changes in the way Continue reading Xjquery Wave of WordPress SocGholish Injections
As a child, I loved sending secret messages to my friends using invisible ink. A quick squeeze of lemon juice was all I needed to jot down my secret message. When combined with a simple heat source (I used the Continue reading What is Steganography? (Or, How Hackers Hide Malware On Websites)
Attackers are always finding new and creative ways to compromise websites and maintain their foothold in environments. This is frequently done via the use of backdoors: PHP scripts designed to allow attackers access and control even after you’ve changed your Continue reading Massive Abuse of an Abandoned Eval PHP WordPress Plugin
Our team at Sucuri has been tracking a massive WordPress infection campaign since 2017 — but up until recently never bothered to give it a proper name. Typically, we refer to it as an ongoing long lasting massive WordPress infection Continue reading Balada Injector: Synopsis of a Massive Ongoing WordPress Malware Campaign
Education is crucial in defending your website against emerging threats. That’s why we are thrilled to share our 2022 Website Threat Research Report. Disseminating this information to the community helps educate website owners about the latest trends and threats. This Continue reading Hacked Website Threat Report – 2022