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Thousands of Sites with Popup Builder Compromised by Balada Injector

On December 11, 2023 WPScan published Marc Montpas’ research on the stored XSS vulnerability in the popular Popup Builder plugin (200,000+ active installation) that was fixed in version 4.2.3. A couple of days later, on December 13th, the Balada Injector Continue reading Thousands of Sites with Popup Builder Compromised by Balada Injector

MageCart WordPress Plugin Injects Malicious User & Credit Card Skimmer

One of our analysts recently found an interesting malicious plugin injected into a WordPress / WooCommerce ecommerce website which both creates and conceals a bogus administrator user. It was also found injecting sophisticated credit card skimming JavaScript into the website’s Continue reading MageCart WordPress Plugin Injects Malicious User & Credit Card Skimmer

Analysis of the Fake WordPress CVE-2023-46182 Patch Plugin & Phishing Campaign 

On December 1, 2023, several security researchers reported about a new phishing campaign targeting WordPress administrators. WordPress sites owners had started receiving emails from WordPress.com with the following message: “The WordPress Security Team has discovered a Remove Code Execution (RCE) Continue reading Analysis of the Fake WordPress CVE-2023-46182 Patch Plugin & Phishing Campaign 

40 New Domains of Magecart Veteran ATMZOW Found in Google Tag Manager

Hackers like Google Tag Manager: millions of sites use it, and they can inject custom scripts and HTML code via a script from the highly trusted domain googletagmanager.com. In order to create a new container and abuse Google Tag Manager, Continue reading 40 New Domains of Magecart Veteran ATMZOW Found in Google Tag Manager

Skimming Credit Cards with WebSockets

If you were to believe shopping mall merchants, you’d think the holiday season starts immediately after Halloween. Christmas trees and candy canes abound, along with the same songs played on repeat that we hear every year ad nauseam. However, the Continue reading Skimming Credit Cards with WebSockets

FakeUpdateRU Chrome Update Infection Spreads Trojan Malware

Fake Google chrome update malware, often associated with the notorious SocGholish infection, is something that we have been tracking for a number of years. It is one of the most common types of website malware. It tricks unsuspecting users into Continue reading FakeUpdateRU Chrome Update Infection Spreads Trojan Malware

Tampered OpenCart Authentication Aids Credit Card Skimming Attack

Using out of date software is the leading cause of website compromise, so keeping your environment patched and up to date is one of the most important responsibilities of a website administrator. It’s not uncommon to employ the use of Continue reading Tampered OpenCart Authentication Aids Credit Card Skimming Attack

Shifting Malware Tactics & Stealthy Use of Non-Executable .txt & .log Files

The malware landscape is constantly evolving — and bad actors are always devising new techniques to evade detection. Our analysts most commonly find website malware nestled within JavaScript or PHP files, which can be directly executed by browsers or servers. Continue reading Shifting Malware Tactics & Stealthy Use of Non-Executable .txt & .log Files

Balada Injector Targets Unpatched tagDiv Plugin, Newspaper Theme & WordPress Admins

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

How to Find & Fix Japanese SEO Spam

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

Decoding Magecart: Credit Card Skimmers Concealed Through Pixels & Images

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

Bogus URL Shorteners Go Mobile-Only in AdSense Fraud Campaign

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

Compromised OpenCart Payment Module Steals Credit Card Information

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

From Google DNS to Tech Support Scam Sites: Unmasking the Malware Trail

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

SiteCheck Remote Website Scanner — Mid-Year 2023 Report

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

Massive Google Colaboratory Abuse: Gambling and Subscription Scam

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

Malicious Injection Redirects Traffic via Parked Domain

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

Spamdexing: What is SEO Spam & How to Remove It

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

Remote Code Execution Backdoor Uses Unicode Obfuscation & Non-Standard File Extensions

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