Phishing & Malspam with Leaf PHPMailer

It’s common knowledge that attackers often use email as a delivery mechanism for their malicious activity — which can range from enticing victims to click a phishing URL or download a malicious attachment.
To support these activities, attackers seek o… Continue reading Phishing & Malspam with Leaf PHPMailer

Magento PHP Injection Loads JavaScript Skimmer

A Magento website owner was concerned about malware and reached out to our team for assistance. Upon investigation, we found the website contained a PHP injection in one of the Magento files: ./app/code/core/Mage/Payment/Model/Method/Cc.php

if ($_… Continue reading Magento PHP Injection Loads JavaScript Skimmer

Evaluating Cookies to Hide Backdoors

Identifying website backdoors is not always an easy task. Since a backdoors primary function is to conceal itself while providing unauthorized access, they are often developed using a variety of techniques that can make it challenging to detect.
For e… Continue reading Evaluating Cookies to Hide Backdoors

Malware Dropper Takes Advantage of COVID-19 Pandemic

Since April, our team has been tracking the spread of a PHP malware dropper. It’s impacting unsuspecting victims who thought they were downloading a mapping software to monitor the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
While the attack is likely spread thr… Continue reading Malware Dropper Takes Advantage of COVID-19 Pandemic

Fake WordPress Functions Conceal assert() Backdoor

A few weeks ago, I was manually inspecting some files on a compromised website. While checking on a specific WooCommerce file, I noticed something interesting.
Among 246 other lines, this very specific part stood out to me:
$config = wp_dbase_config_i… Continue reading Fake WordPress Functions Conceal assert() Backdoor

Obfuscation Techniques in MARIJUANA Shell “Bypass”

Attackers are always trying to come up with new ways to evade detection from the wide range of security controls available for web applications. This also extends to malware like PHP shells, which are typically left on compromised websites as a backdo… Continue reading Obfuscation Techniques in MARIJUANA Shell “Bypass”

Hackers Love Expired Domains

Sometimes, website owners no longer want to own a domain name and they allow it to expire without attempting to renew it.
This happens all the time and is totally normal, but it’s important to remember that attackers regularly monitor domain expiratio… Continue reading Hackers Love Expired Domains

Hidden SEO Spam Link Injections on WordPress Sites

Often when a website is injected with SEO spam, the owner is completely unaware of the issue until they begin to receive warnings from search engines or blacklists.
This is by design — attackers intentionally try to prevent detection by arranging inje… Continue reading Hidden SEO Spam Link Injections on WordPress Sites

PrestaShop SuperAdmin Injector and Login Stealer

According to W3Tech’s data, PrestaShop is among the most popular CMS choices for existing ecommerce websites, so it should come as no surprise that malware has been created to specifically target these environments.
We recently came across an infected… Continue reading PrestaShop SuperAdmin Injector and Login Stealer

Evasive Maneuvers in Data Stealing Gateways

We have already shared examples of many kinds of malware that rely on an external gateway to receive or return data, such as different malware payloads.
During a recent investigation, we came across this example of a PHP script that attackers use for … Continue reading Evasive Maneuvers in Data Stealing Gateways