Wordpress.org Warns of Active Worm Hacking Blogs

Erik writes "Wordpress, the popular open-source Content Management System (CMS) for many thousands of bloggers worldwide, is under attack from a 'clever' worm that automatically compromises unpatched versions of the Wordpress system. The particularly nasty bug crawls the web for vulnerable Wordpress installations, installing malware, deleting content, and generally wreaking havoc wherever it can. Today, Wordpress founder Matt Mullenweg eloquently implored Wordpress bloggers to update more frequently. Originally, updating the Wordpress system was a rather laborious process; however, newer versions offer fast and simple one-click upgrades. The two most recent versions of Wordpress (2.8.3 and 2.8.4) cannot be attacked by the worm discovered this week, and blogs hosted at Wordpress.com are also apparently immune."

"Clever?"

[Solra Bizna]

There have been widespread worms that did this sort of thing before (phpBB comes to mind). Does this one do anything novel that makes it deserve the adjective "clever?"

-:sigma.SB

Re:

[mysidia]

There was exactly 1 really clever worm of this nature. The internet worm created by Robert Morris Jr. [ryerson.ca] 21 years ago. And perhaps the first worm in a PHP/CGI app which was not this one.

The rest have just been copycats, non-original. And the payload isn't even clever.

Hey Wordpress...

[pathological liar]

Maybe you should stop putting the Wordpress version in meta tags on the page? Or at least make it opt(-in)ional?

Re:

[zn0k]

As outlined in TFA (yes, I know, I know) that's snake oil. You can run response tests to determine a version.

Re:Hey Wordpress...

[StarHeart]

I wouldn't say it is snake oil. Putting versions in a page allows you to Google for it. Which makes the attack a lot easier. It also allows the attacker to do reconnaissance a lot less detectably a hold of time, and then spring it on everyone at once.

Re:

[siloko]

It also allows the attacker to do reconnaissance a lot less detectably a hold of time

You're at +3 Insightful so I guess this means something, but perhaps not in English . . .

Re:

[yawnmoth]

I suppose you also think salted passwords are snake oil? Sure, they're not going to stop someone who's brute forcing on-the-fly, but it does make life more complicated for people using rainbow tables.

I only mention salted passwords because Wordpress uses them [openwall.com] (see wp-includes/class-phpass.php).

Re:

[yawnmoth]

Salted passwords have nothing to do with what essentially is the same thing as obfuscating banners on web or mail servers. Salted passwords significantly improve security.

Do you even know what a salted password is? Instead of brute forcing hash(password) you brute force hash(salt + password). Since the salt is always going to be known, brute forcing hash(salt + password) takes no more time then brute forcing hash(password). All it protects against are run-of-the-mill rainbow table attacks

Obfuscating b

Re:

[pixelpusher220]

who said the salt has to be only appended or prepended? I've built systems where the salt was mixed into the password much like a deck of cards is shuffled. Good luck figuring that out ;-) The pattern of 'shuffle' was constant, so technically just an obfuscation, but a pretty effective one against brute force attacks.

Besides, the point of a salt isn't to make something unknowable, it's to make it hard to brute-force. I don't know that the statement "the salt will always be known" is a valid one. The

Re:

[yawnmoth]

I don't know that the statement "the salt will always be known" is a valid one. The fact that it's different for each password is what makes it secure.

The statements "the salt will always be known" and "it's different for each password" aren't mutually exclusive. You can have a unique salt for each user / password and still always know the salt for each of those users.

Also, in the case of Wordpress, I imagine the only password an attacker would be interested in would be that of an admin. Presumably you w

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea isn't to hide the fact that you're using Wordpress - it's to hide the fact that you may very well be running an exploitable version of Wordpress.

Re:

[anagama]

Congrats if it gives you enough extra time to do an update, though yeah, it should have been done immediately. Of course, immediate backups don't always happen even if you are conscientious, e.g. you're on vacation, a worm comes out, a quick fix comes out, but your laying in the sand in some wifi-less slashdot-less world.

Re:

[anagama]

s/backups/updates/

s/your/you\'re/

Re:

[Architect_sasyr]

s/backups/updates/

s/your/you\'re/

s/wifi-less slashdot-less/deepest dimension of a hell hole containing Episodes 1, 2 and 3/

Re:

[mysidia]

The worm could be designed just to find as many wordpress installs as possible and attempt the exploit on all of them, regardless of version number.

Using searches for wordpress-specific files as search keywords to identify them.

the problem with one-click upgrades

[Anonymous Coward]

...newer versions offer fast and simple one-click upgrades

If wordpress.org is hacked, again [wordpress.org], their one-click upgrade feature means instant ownage for all Wordpress blogs everywhere.

Re:

[kickme_hax0r]

Slightly better one-click system:
- Open your favourite shell (click, sometimes)
- wget the patch file
- read through the patch file if you think it may be an ownage patch
- apply patch file
- ???
- Profit. Too bad for all those that have to manually apply the patch for lack of patch (or something similar)

Re:the problem with one-click upgrades

[jesser]

That problem isn't specific to 1-click updates. It exists equally with 0-click updates (like Firefox's minor updates) and 50-click updates (like WordPress used to have).

You can improve the security of updates by using multiple layers of software protection (e.g. https AND code-signing). You can't improve security by increasing human involvement in the update process and then blaming users who update while the site is hacked. Increasing human involvement just makes it slower and limits the kinds of software protection you can use.

Re:

[mysidia]

No, when you click the "auto upgrade" button, WP prompts you to enter the hostname, FTP username, and FTP password, to apply the upgrades.

Now, this does pose a security risk if your site is compromised (unbeknownst to you), and the attacker manages to use SQL injection to redirect you to a 'fake upgrade page'

When you click the upgrade button, and provide your credentials... the attacker has co-opted the web-ui, and you're sending the FTP username and password directly to the kiddie, giving them the me

Re:

[PReDiToR]

My WP install doesn't ask me for those details.

But then, I'm running it on my own LAMP.

Re:

[JSlope]

You don't have the correct permissions on your files, if it asks you for ftp login and passwords. With correct permissions it can modify everything by itself.

Re:

[mysidia]

Au Contraire. I think if it can modify itself, the site clearly has incorrect file permissions. It's intended behavior that scripts can't modify themselves.

Actually, I use SELinux configurations to make sure Apache can never write to files in web content directories.

Re:

[JSlope]

Actually I think that the ability to easy upgrade the system to latest version (without vulnerabilities) outages the risk of self modifying scripts. I've seen old sites un-updated because it takes 20 minutes instead of one to update them. It's the same risk as turning on autoupdate in your OS.

Re:

[JSlope]

outages = outweighs

Re:

[mysidia]

I actually don't think it does outweigh the risk... it's not that much harder to enter credentials to update the files.

There are a lot of good ways to implement auto-update that don't require self-modifying scripts. A good example, would be to have a yum repository, and deploy updates with "yum update"

Or even to have the user setup a daemon during install that checks for and applies updates.

If the script can modify files in the web folder, there is much more serious damage a script kiddie can do if

Re:

[JSlope]

Actually they'll be able to modify content of the site by having admin, at least with wordpress most of the content is stored in database.

So they'll be able to upload malicious js files.
They will be able to serve fishing sites form your web server to some degree.
And anyway usually you can update php code easily: remove everything and update a new version from development site. But the most difficult task is to clear the database, so that to keep useful content and to remove malicious changes. Usually it

Re:

[jo42]

The problem with "simple one-click upgrades" is that the web server, usually Apache, requires full read/write privileges to the directories and files that Wordpress lives in. Talk about a massive gaping security hole.

Re:

[st0nes]

I have a request: please don't use the word "massive"http://markwiddicombe.wordpress.com/2009/08/21/words/ [wordpress.com] to mean "big".

Re:

[palegray.net]

Good luck with all the security holes you're inevitably going to reinvent along the way.

Re:

[maxume]

None of them are particularly likely to be an attractive nuisance. Popularity brings its own problems.

If I were going to write blogging software, there is a dangerous possibility that it would render static html, which I would have to laboriously rsync to the server. But maybe that isn't blogging software anymore.

Re:

[palegray.net]

If you're taking that approach, you'll probably be okay :). I would argue that such a system, coupled with a basic interface for submitting comments, would definitely qualify as a CMS (with the most commonly used type of CMS being blogging systems), and should be viewed as a blogging platform.

Most people go the opposite direction and insist on rendering everything dynamically. I like the approach you're considering much better; in fact, it's exactly the approach I took when I wrote the CMS that drives th

Re:

[jobst]

how many different shapes of wheels can you invent?

ok, round.
ahh, and round.
what was that other one .. round!

jobst

Re:

[mysidia]

Haven't they ever heard of signed patches?

Why can't they make the one-click upgrade verify a GPG signature before performing the installation of the code contained in the upgrade file?

Captain Obvious to the Rescue

[Xeleema]

From TFA: "This particular worm, like many before it, is clever: it registers a user, uses a security bug (fixed earlier in the year) to allow evaluated code to be executed through the permalink structure, makes itself an admin, then uses JavaScript to hide itself when you look at users page, attempts to clean up after itself, then goes quiet so you never notice while it inserts hidden spam and malware into your old posts."

So let me get this straight. If I have a blog that doesn't allow other people to

Re:

[harlows_monkeys]

It registers a user? I wonder if this why my Wordpress blog, which generally is not of interest to anyone, suddenly has had several requests for new user registrations.

Re:

[carolfromoz]

This interests me because I've seen the same thing in the last couple of days. Normally the only reason anyone registers on my blog is to post a comment. I have my settings so I have to approve the first comment and after that they're good to go - so it was odd to see a couple of registrations with no comment approval coming straight after.

Now I've gone to check... they're all gmail accounts. *suspicious*

maybe if they used their release notification list

[Anonymous Coward]

http://wordpress.org/download/ [wordpress.org]

When you download Wordpress, you're asked for your email address for release notifications. Shame they don't actually use it:

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/230558 [wordpress.org]

What's the point of offering it if they don't use it? Also, their blog has such a terrible noise-to-quality ratio that it's absolutely useless in this regard. All I care about is whether a new version is available or not - I couldn't care less about what new "awesome" features they've added or are trying to

Re:

[Zancarius]

What's the point of offering it if they don't use it? Also, their blog has such a terrible noise-to-quality ratio that it's absolutely useless in this regard. All I care about is whether a new version is available or not - I couldn't care less about what new "awesome" features they've added or are trying to add - I just want to update my blog when new versions are released and leave it at that.

The admin dashboard alerts you whenever a new version is available. You don't even need to register with/check thei

Re:

[EnglishTim]

Yes, but that assumes you regularly visit your admin panel.

Re:

[oDDmON oUT]

Whenever you login as an admin to post, or do something else, that is your default landing spot.

If you choose not to do anything, because some precious widget might break, or you have a hair appointment in 20 minutes, and continue doing so through numerous point releases, you get what you paid for eh?

Or as Duncan Chalk said:
          "Pain is instructive"

Re:

[Zancarius]

The OP wasn't talking about people who log into the admin panel and don't upgrade even though they're told they need to - he was talking about people who don't "regularly visit [their] admin panel" in the first people. At that point, punctuality isn't the problem - keeping informed is.

I understand that contributors/authors who haven't any access to the administrative features won't be able to see the version (but that also assumes they wouldn't be in a position to upgrade either). But really, what's the poi

Re:

[rfunches]

You (and only you) access your Wordpress blog twice a month to make a semi-monthly post.
You see the admin panel when you log in.
The admin panel shows you when an update is available.
Therefore, you may be up to a half a month behind on update notifications delivered through the admin panel.

A half a month doesn't sound like a big deal but look at the most recent releases:

• 2.8.1 - July 9, 2009
• 2.8.2 - July 20, 2009
• 2.8.3 - August 3, 2009
• 2.8.4 - August 12, 2009

They really need an e-mail distribution list for

Re:

[EnglishTim]

But really, what's the point of using WordPress if you're not going to use the admin panel? It shows a wonderful overview of comments, spam, drafts, and so forth. I would assume that the idea of never visiting the dashboard enough to notice new versions might be applicable to those use cases of individuals who make a post once every 2 months.

But to be honest I think that's a reasonable use case. It's the kind of use I make of Wordpress. I view my site as more of a homepage than a blog - I use Pages much more than Posts and make changes only rarely. As a result it'll often be several weeks between my visits to the admin page.

It's a shame; for people like me the notification mailing list would be perfect but for some reason the Wordpress folks don't make use of it. It's odd that they still encourage people to join it as it can give you a false se

aghhhh!!!

[stokessd]

Now even my own blog says that I need to enlarge my Penis!

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

A clever worm, regardless the interpretation.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Another famous victim

[Gonoff]

Scobilizer has been tweeting about the same problem this afternoon.

Re:

[maxume]

Hey, he can't spend all day on the toilet.

Re:

[Swampash]

Scoble's blog was hosted by Wordpress.com for about four years. During that time he wasn't hacked once. When Scoble was hired to pimp Rackspace, his blog moved to a box at Rackspace, and evidently no-one at Rackspace keeps up with security patches. Not a good look for a hosting company.

Why people don't update

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason most siteowners are slow or never update is because it's a huge pain in the butt.

This applies to almost all CMS's, forums, and similar software.

While a one-click solution sounds nice, the real problem is that almost any large board has a number of plug-ins and modifications to get it where it needs to be.

Once those mods/plugins are installed, the one-click updates no longer work.

SEO URL's?
Custom themes?
Anti-bot measures?

All of these things can completely render an "easy update" useless.

The people

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

The WordPress "one click update" is annoying, too. Instead of fetching the package it needs from a URL, unpacking it in a temporary directory, and copying the files it needs locally, it requires an FTP login and password.

Re:

[zonky]

No, that is a very good idea, because apache shouldn't have write permissions to your core wordpress files- using a seperate ftp account login means you're elevating to overwrite files a good idea indeed.

Re:

[ukyoCE]

Yep, this. I tried to do the upgrade and was a little surprised when it asked for FTP login information. I had never even tried the "automatic upgrade" because I knew making my entire wordpress install modifiable by apache was a blatantly bad idea.

The use of the FTP account to do it makes a good deal of sense, and is about the best they can do.

Honestly the manual upgrade is so easy as to be laughable anyway, but for the frequency of WP updates, anything that makes it easier is still a good thing.

Re:Why people don't update

[phoebe]

There is also a interesting point regarding software repository support. I have a server running Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Server which is supposed to be supported till April 2011, however Wordpress is in the Universe repository and not updated since November 2008 and is vulnerable to a few attacks that delete content.

If these packages are not going to be updated should there not be at least a warning, or method to bar such packages from being installed after security issues have been raised?

Wordpress 2.3.3 [ubuntu.com] in 8.04 LTS Universe repository.

Re:

[palegray.net]

Packages are aren't actively maintained for security fixes should be removed from the repositories.

Re:Why people don't update

[choongiri]

*sigh* I don't think you understand how package management and security fixes in debian / ubuntu works. New releases of software almost invariably introduce new features, as well as bug fixes. For that reason, important fixes for security issues are backported, and the version number stays the same. (Introducing new features to a LTS / stable release wouldn't be acceptible.)

Now, what you said is technically true - if it's not being actively maintained for security fixes it *should* be removed - but the fact that Ubuntu's universe package of wordpress is still at 2.3.3 doesn't in and of itself mean that it hasn't been patched with the latest security fixes.

Re:Why people don't update

[palegray.net]

I've verified that the OP's assessment of the situation is valid with respect to WordPress (a fresh install from the repos exposes unpatched vulnerabilities long after patches are released to correct the situation).

I understand the Debian/Ubuntu package management and security release system quite well; I happen to work or a certain "Large Virtual Server Company" and I've been using Debian almost exclusively on my systems for almost ten years.

Re:

[palegray.net]

Yeah, I thought about that right after I whacked "submit" :). I do try to abstain from bringing the company into general discussions like this, but in this case I think the reference was merited.

Re:

[sciencewhiz]

From Ubuntu's website [ubuntu.com]. This was the first result from googling for ubuntu universe.

Canonical does not provide a guarantee of regular security updates for software found in universe but will provide these where they are made available by the community. Users should understand the risk inherent in using packages from the universe component.

Unlike Ubuntu, Debian does support anything in their repository. There was a security update for wordpress last month. They also do remove packages in which security supp

Re:

[xdroop]

Why don't people upgrade? Well in my case, I didn't upgrade because I knew that upgrading would immediately kill both the aftermarket theme and several of the aftermarket plugins that I was using, some of which had a huge amount of non-trivial data stored in them. All the plug-ins and theme bits came from WordPress-blessed sites, which made the time-bomb nature of their unsupportedness even more frustrating. After fighting through several minor updates and then looking at a major one, I just gave up, exp

Thats why I use www.SimpleScripts.com

[Patheos]

I personally use www.SimpleScripts.com for this exact reason. I use a ton of open source software for my websites and it is hard to keep track of all the updates made to them. SimpleScripts emails me every time an update comes out and it provides me a one click upgrade to the latest version for Wordpress, phpBB and Drupal which are the 3 systems I use the most.

Re:

[Swampash]

Yeah, but you actually CARE. Anyone who runs a Wordpress blog is greeted, in mile-high-flaming letters, with "YOUR WORDPRESS VERSION IS OUT OF DATE, CLICK HERE TO UPDATE" whenever he logs in to the CMS when it's running a version other than current. The hole being exploited by this worm was fixed about six months ago.

In other words, the people who are getting hit by this worm have been ignoring the reminders to upgrade for at least half a year.

Re:

[teraph]

And if you're really lazy, or don't regularly update your blog, you can even enter your email on the Downloads page of Wordpress.org and they will email you whenever a stable version comes out.

Re:

[EnglishTim]

Or rather, they won't. [wordpress.org]

Thanks

[spgass]

Thanks for posting. I finally upgraded from version 2.3 to 2.8.4 for my [lowtechtimes.com] blogs [olddominionwildlife.com].

Re:

[nidarus]

That was subtle.

Nice information

[Dropship]

That's a good information. Most of the serious bloggers keep updated their wordpress versions. The users also have option to update their blog by just one click. If you have not done so, please do it right now.

Instead of a passionate plea to the users...

[lennier]

... how about he makes a passionate plea to the PROGRAMMERS to say 'Guys, let's STOP PUTTING SECURITY HOLES IN OUR SOFTWARE?'

Just a thought.

It shouldn't be any user's problem to need to 'upgrade or get hacked'. If you're writing web software that's hackable, you're the one doing it wrong., not your users.

Technical details ?

[ladadadada]

Does anybody have any technical details about this worm ?

Some people can't upgrade immediately and it would be nice to be able to block the request strings (or user-agent, IP address, whetever) that the worm uses.

I have looked around the various blogs reporting this and on full-disclosure lists but I can't find any better advice than "Upgrade. Now."

updates

[fearlezz]

Matt Mullenweg eloquently implored Wordpress bloggers to update more frequently.

If only Matt stopped breaking backwards compatibility, I would be up to date constantly. In the last few years I've seen several things breaking as matty decided to rename hooks and stuff. Therefore, all important functions of my sites must be checked before actually upgrading...