Front-end JavaScript-based credit card stealing malware has garnered a lot of attention within the security community. This makes sense, since the “swipers” can be easily detected by simply scanning the web pages of e-commerce sites. However, this isn’t the only way to steal payment details and sensitive user information from compromised sites. Server-side swipers are […]
Tag Archives: Website Security
Malicious Plugin Used to Encrypt WordPress Posts
During a recent cleanup, we found an interesting malicious WordPress plugin, “WP Security”, that was being used to encrypt blog post content. The website owner complained of a newly installed and activated plugin on their website that was rendering their original content unreadable. The plugin encrypted posts with the ‘AES-256-CBC’ method by using the openssl_encrypt […]
Neapolitan Backdoor Injection
Most of us are familiar with Neapolitan ice cream: a flavour whose distinguishing characteristic is not one single flavour but several. Many also know it as the ice cream which your roommate eats all of the chocolate, leaving you with the paltry remains of the notably less popular vanilla and strawberry flavours. While cleaning a […]
Reverse Hardening WordPress Config
Hardening is the process of securing a website or system against known security weaknesses or potential issues to reduce the attack surface. The more functions or features a website has, the more potential points of entry an attacker has to leverage. For example, a popular method for hardening WordPress installations is to disable the backend […]
How to Stop a DDoS Attack & Prevent Future Attacks
DDoS attacks are a growing threat for websites. But do you know how to mitigate them in their tracks? We’ll cover some essential fundamentals on stopping a DDoS attack and preventing them from happening in the future. Specifically, as a webmaster, keeping your site online during large traffic spikes is what you strive for. We […]
Fake Google Domains Used in Evasive Magento Skimmer
We were recently contacted by a Magento website owner who had been blacklisted and was experiencing McAfee SiteAdvisor “Dangerous Site” warnings. Our investigation revealed that the site had been infected with a credit card skimmer loading JavaScript from the malicious internationalized domain google-analytîcs[.]com (or xn--google-analytcs-xpb[.]com in ASCII): The malicious user purposely selected the domain name […]
How to Perform a Website Security Audit ( with Checklist)
Why Should You Audit Your Website for Security? Most hacks and cyber attacks happen because of poor security practices. The first step you can take to improve your online security is knowing exactly what’s installed on your website. Having a checklist can help you stay on top of website security. Website Audit Checklist Here is […]
Reset Email Account Passwords after Website Infection: Follow Up
In a previous analysis of a malicious file, we demonstrated why you should always update your email account passwords after a security compromise. The information security threat landscape is always changing. Likewise, the tools used by bad actors are also evolving to evade detection by IDS/IPS and other similar services. cPanel Hosting Environment File Analysis […]
The Strange Case of the Malicious Favicon
During the past year, our Remediation department has seen a large increase in the number of fully spammed sites. The common factors are strangely named and unusually located favicon.ico files, along with the creation of “bak.bak” index files peppered around the website. In the majority of the cases, the pattern is similar regardless of the […]
The Cost of a Hacked Website – Survey
As part of our commitment to the website security community, we want to know the true impacts of a website compromise from the owner’s perspective. If you are a business that has dealt with any type of website attack, your participation in this six-minute survey will help us improve our services and support website owners […]
