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) vulnerability on your site, which allows attackers to execute malwares and steal your data, user […]
Tag Archives: Website Backdoor
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Using out of date software is the leading cause of website compromise, so keeping your environment patched and up to date is one of the most important responsibilities of a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 custom code on websites, and spend small fortunes on software developers to tailor their website […]
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 new waves of Balada malware injections on websites that were actively using tagDiv themes. This […]
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 well as peculiar includes and file extensions within their WordPress backdoors to conceal their malware […]
Massive Abuse of an Abandoned Eval PHP WordPress Plugin
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 passwords and thought that the worst was over. Since external scans are unable to see […]
Hacked Website Threat Report – 2022
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 year, we’ve included new insights to highlight the most prevalent tactics and techniques observed in […]
Attackers Abuse Cron Jobs to Reinfect Websites
Malicious cron jobs are nothing new; we’ve seen attackers use them quite frequently to reinfect websites. However, in recent months we’ve noticed a distinctive new wave of these infections that appears to be closely related to this article about a backdoor that we’ve been tracking. In today’s post we’ll be discussing what cron jobs are, […]
The Dangers of Installing Nulled WordPress Themes and Plugins
Nulled WordPress themes and plugins are a controversial topic for many in the web development world — and arguably one of the bigger threats to WordPress security. Essentially modified versions of official WordPress themes and plugins with their licensing restrictions removed, these nulled software copies are often touted as premium functionality packaged in a free […]
Konami Code Backdoor Concealed in Image
Attackers are always looking for new ways to conceal their malware and evade detection, whether it’s through new forms of obfuscation, concatenation, or — in this case — unorthodox use of image file extensions. One of the most common backdoors that we have observed over the last few months has been designed to evade detection […]
Massive Campaign Uses Hacked WordPress Sites as Platform for Black Hat Ad Network
Every so often attackers register a new domain to host their malware. In many cases, these new domains are associated with specific malware campaigns, often related to redirecting legitimate website traffic to third party sites of their choosing — including tech support scams, adult dating, phishing, or drive-by-downloads. Since late December, our team has been […]
