louisgray.com - Latest Comments in louisgray.com: Banning by Computer, Repairing by Hand, Google KOs TechWag

Re: louisgray.com: Banning by Computer, Repairing by Hand, Google KOs TechWag

Tony Hung — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 13:07:00 -0000

@JASG -- can you contact me if you have a minute?

I'd love to do a follow up story on Wordpress security and wanted to ask a few questions.

anthony {dot} hung {at} gmail {dot} com ... many thanks.

tony hung
deepjiveinterests.com

Re: louisgray.com: Banning by Computer, Repairing by Hand, Google KOs TechWag

JASG — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 12:42:00 -0000

Thank you for the write up, Interesting ideas from the commenters, and there are some valid points.

I have about 20 years in information security, so I was very aware of the hidden links, so I used firebug to load the site and used pharos to ensure that firebug didn't miss anything on the hidden links bit.

The issue was with a bad backup from the hosting company, their global.config file had a link injected, so everyone on that server has the same issue, some 2000 sites when I checked.

This makes for some very interesting reading, when you tear apart what was on the other side of the link (also at ittoolbox) the badware was old, most everyone with a semi-modern browser would never have gotten infected. Anyone with working AV would never even have seen it.

The idea of subverting blogs and the interlinked connections of blogs as well did provide fodder for my other blog at ITToolbox because this can be a very neat thing to accomplish, and if we can think about it, that means that people are already doing it.

I would pay google 300 dollars to wax their malware link.

thanks for the write up, I do appreciate it.

Dan

Re: louisgray.com: Banning by Computer, Repairing by Hand, Google KOs TechWag

Michael O'Shaugnessy — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 05:43:00 -0000

Live by the Google, Die by the Google. You simply can't have it both ways.

Re: louisgray.com: Banning by Computer, Repairing by Hand, Google KOs TechWag

Solacetech — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 03:35:00 -0000

Google is the main path to my Blogging door. It's amazing the kind of power "search engines" have nowadays...

Re: louisgray.com: Banning by Computer, Repairing by Hand, Google KOs TechWag

Edwin Khodabakchian — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 03:05:00 -0000

May be the solution to this would be to have a paid fast line: you do no pay -> 2+weeks. You pay $300.00 and your request gets reviews in less than 2 days. This would at least offer the choice to the site owner.

Re: louisgray.com: Banning by Computer, Repairing by Hand, Google KOs TechWag

macbeach — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 02:28:00 -0000

Your comments apply to a blog or other web site that have been somehow compromised by a third party.

Suppose someone intentionally sets up a web site to spread malware? Should such a site be taken off the list within hours of removing the offending code?

One has to ask if there was malicious intent on the part of the operator, or was it incompetence, or was the operator fully innocent. How do you automate the answering of those questions?

Re: louisgray.com: Banning by Computer, Repairing by Hand, Google KOs TechWag

Anonymous — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 01:49:00 -0000

this is even worse in Firefox 3

if you try to get to the site, it blocks with the only options being "get me out of here" or "explain" with no passthrough option.

essentially if you are on ff3, that site is not available to you.

Re: louisgray.com: Banning by Computer, Repairing by Hand, Google KOs TechWag

Tony — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 01:40:00 -0000

While I can't say exactly what happened, I did write about how Wordpress blogs -- and other sites *not* running Wordpress -- have been compromised, with scripts being secretly added, invisible code added to templates and a whole bunch extra.

Its possible that Techwag's security has been compromised and they may not even realize it.

(possible!)

Secondly, as someone who's own blog was compromised and dropped from the index, I can corroborate that the time it takes to re-instate it is absolutely glacial.

Cheers
t @ dji