Wordpress 2.3.3 fixes a few minor bugs and the debatable Wordpress 2.3.2 XMLRPC vulnerability. It took 4 months to track the XMLRPC exploit and 1 days for the patch to be release. Kudos to WordPress Developer especially Ryan & Joseph Scott for these quick security release.

Wordpress 2.3.2 XMLRPC vulnerability patches by josephscott

• xmlrpc.php.diff (0.7 kB) -on 02/02/08 16:53:22.
• xmlrpc.php.2.diff (3.2 kB) - on 02/03/08 04:49:26.
• 2.3-xmlrpc.php.diff (3.2 kB) - on 02/04/08 18:48:23 (2.3.3).

External Links

• Wordpress 2.3.3 Download
• Wordpress Development Blog
• Wordpress 2.3.3 Milestone
• village-idiot.org → WordPress 2.3.3 List of changed files (download available)

This issue has been raised 4 months ago (october 2007). Certainly this is one of BadPress Ticketing Problems. Until WordPress Developer release Official securities fix (v 2.3.2.1 || 2.3.5 ?? ) You might want to try this “debatable” patch by SecuriTeam - Paul (Yabba) Jones.

Note: Matt Mullenweg & the WP-Hackers is against secureTeam “hasty-patch” and their POC release. [wp-hackers] xmlrpc issue or no?.

Excerpt from Wordpress Support Forum » iframe injection problem?

Matt Mullenweg → [...] I would rather not have people think they’re safe and really not be, and there is a release coming shortly anyway. [...]
If anyone is scared and wants a fix NOW, they should either turn off registration (which is off by default) or delete xmlrpc.php. ~ Feb 3, 2008

WordPress 2.3.3 has been release it’s advice not to try this patches

Patch xmlrpc.php via WordPress Admin

1. Login to Wordpress Admin
2. Goto Manage » Files then scroll down to “Other Files” sections, type in xmlrpc.php. otherwise type the following URL in your browser address-bar ↓

   mydomain.com/wp-admin/templates.php?file=xmlrpc.php&submit=Edit+file+%C2%BB

3. Find the following code (around Line 1151 - 1203 ) within wp_xmlrpc_server::mw_editPost() class methods ↓

   if ( ( 'post' == $post_type ) && !current_user_can('edit_post', $post_ID) )

4. Replace with

   //if ( ( 'post' == $post_type ) && !current_user_can('edit_post', $post_ID) )
    if ( ( 1 || 'post' == $post_type ) && !current_user_can('edit_post', $post_ID) )
   

   saved.

5. Disabled New User Registrations for temporary.

External Links

• Wordpress Support Forum → iframe injection problem?
• SecuriTeam → WordPress 2.3.2 XMLRPC Vulnerability POC
• Wikipedia XML-RPC
• Google → Wordpress XML-RPC Vulnerabilities
• PHPXREF wp-trunk xmlrpc source

I just upgrade today, WordPress 2.3.2, fixed a nasty vulnerability. I haven’t did any test yet but according to “blackhat domainer” you can view WordPress Draft Entry via simple URL parameters without log in (un-authorize view).

WordPress developer had to release this ’securities’ fixes before the upcoming 2.4. You could either wait for 2.4 (the milestone is almost ready?) or upgrade immediately. But before others exploit this vulnerability its better to upgrade.

Peter Westwood’s sum up all wordpress 2.3.2 recent change and update in details. Read it first before you decide to upgrade.

External Links

• How to know today what ShoeMoney is going to post tomorrow
• Wordpress 2.3.2 Announcements (dev blog)

I used gravatars2 plugins to support my new sexy theme. There is some minor issue (throw fatal Error in PHP5.1) with this WordPress plugin. I did asked them to updated it but till today’s this bug still exists with Gravatars2 plugins.

This “fatal error” or conflict happen if you had PHP 5 ( 5.0 > 5.1 above) with HTTPRequest Modules Installed.

Plugin could not be activated because it triggered a fatal error.
Fatal error: Cannot redeclare class httprequest in /../wp-content/plugins/gravatars2.php on line 284

HTTPRequest Classname Conflict

It’s not that hard to fix this “Naming Conflicts”. All you need is “Search and Replace” HTTPRequest class name to different name (ie: _HTTPRequest, HTTP__Request) so it wont conflict with PHP HTTPRequest Standard Class. If you don’t know how to do this. Check the below lists. It wont take long.

1. Open wp-content/plugins/gravatars2.php or http://www.my-domain-name.com/wp-admin/plugin-editor.php?file=gravatars2.php
2. Find on line 284

   class HTTPRequest

   Replace with

   class _HTTPRequest

3. Next find on line 323

   function HTTPRequest($url, $timeout)

   Replace with

   function _HTTPRequest($url, $timeout)

4. Final step find on line 408

   $hr = new HTTPRequest($url, $timeout);

   Replace with

   $hr = new _HTTPRequest($url, $timeout);

5. Save or upload back to wp-content/plugins/

Thats all

Gravatars2

For the record - “Gravatar2 developer doesn’t give support without donation”.

Excerpt from Kip Bond at zenpax.com

I am no longer giving support for this plugin without a donation — it’s becoming repetitive and not very rewarding. You can email me (kip @ this website’s hostname (zenpax.com)) with your question, and I can tell you what minimum donation amount is sufficient per the difficulty of the question. Note that this donation in no way obligates me to any contractual duties. It’s mostly a way to make sure that people have exhausted their own efforts at resolving their own problems before asking for my support. ~kip Bond

I hope these would explain some curiosity.

tips to php developer: used class_exists before declaring any user define class.

Related Links

• Gravatars2 Discussion & Support page

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.

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.

Related Post

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

External Links

• Bluehost Hostmonster CEO’s blog
• DNS Lookup results for wordpress.net.in
• Aboutus.org wiki on MattHeaton.com
• National Vulnerabilities Database (NVD) on Wordpress 2.0 > 2.0.5 vulnerabilities
• Murray’s Blog My Wordpress Cracked
• pseudo-flaw - more random wordpress blogs owned by seo spammers