Recent Joomla! Compromise Might Affect You
- Category : Website Security
- Posted on : Sep 17, 2012
- Views : 1,925
- By : Radcliff S.
We are noticing a string of Joomla! compromises, and we wanted to share some details for those running the Content Management System (CMS). This current exploit is affecting the following versions of Joomla :
- 1.6.x
- 1.7.x
- 2.5.0-2.5.2
- 2.5.4
- all earlier 2.5.x versions
The compromise begins with the attacker registering a user, and then escalating that user’s privileges to an administration level. In every case, we noticed the attackers add a user with a Gmail™ address beginning with xxxtxxx and the user name of alexaalexa.
Once the attackers have their user on the account, they typically come back a few days later and edit the error.php file to create a script that allows people to upload content anonymously. A few days after the creation of the file upload script, the attackers come back again and uploads the following file s:
- rp.php
- indx.php
- stph.php
This attack is extremely malicious, and the stph.php file performs other aggressive attacks against other networks. To see if your site is affected, run the following query :
SELECT u.username AS username, u.email AS email, g.group_id AS group_id
FROM jos_users u, jos_user_usergroup_map g
WHERE u.email LIKE ‘xxxtxxx%’
AND u.id = g.user_id
If the email matches xxxtxxx, the user name matches alexaalexa, and the group_id is either a 7 or 8, your account is compromised. Group_id 7 is associated with the Administrator group, and group_id 8 is associated with the Super Administrator group. As a general rule, users do not have these permissions.
- If affected, we recommend taking the following actions:
- Remove the uploaded files, and then restore the error.php file to its original content.
- Remove any users with the group_id of 7 or 8.
- Update Joomla to the latest version.
- Update all themes, plugins, and extensions to their latest versions.
Categories
Subscribe Now
10,000 successful online businessmen like to have our content directly delivered to their inbox. Subscribe to our newsletter!Archive Calendar
| Sat | Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
| 30 | ||||||
Recent Articles
-
Posted on : Jul 25
-
Posted on : Jul 07
-
Posted on : Apr 07
-
Posted on : Mar 19
Optimized my.cnf configuration for MySQL 8 (on cPanel/WHM servers)
Tags
- layer 7
- tweak
- kill
- process
- sql
- Knowledge
- vpn
- seo vpn
- wireguard
- webmail
- ddos mitigation
- attack
- ddos
- DMARC
- server load
- Development
- nginx
- php-fpm
- cheap vpn
- Hosting Security
- xampp
- Plesk
- cpulimit
- VPS Hosting
- smtp
- smtp relay
- exim
- Comparison
- cpu
- WHM
- mariadb
- encryption
- sysstat
- optimize
- Link Building
- apache
- centos
- Small Business
- VPS
- Error
- SSD Hosting
- Networking
- optimization
- DNS
- mysql
- ubuntu
- Linux
