Tracking Website Defacers with HTTP Referers, (Fri, Apr 7th)

In a previous diary, I explained how pictures may affect your website reputation[1]. Although asuggestedrecommendation was to prevent cross-linking by using the HTTP referer, this is a control that I do not implement on my personal blog, purely for research purposes. And it successfully worked!

My website and all its components are constantly monitored but Im also monitoring online services like pastebin.com to track references to padding:5px 10px”>
html lang=en-USheadtitleIndonesian-Defacer/title
link rel=icon type=image/x-icon href=https://blog.rootshell.be/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/blackhat-nl.png
meta property=og:title content=nginxDEX
meta property=description content=Jemb4t
meta property=og:author content=Jemb4t
meta property=og:image content=http://i.imgur.com/F2KaExC.jpg
meta charset=UTF-8
/head
script type=text/javascript

As you can see a group of website defacer (MagelangN00bs[3]) is using a direct link to an image on my blog as favicon[4] file. I think that they used my image because it looks like the Indonesian flag with a black hat width:800px” />

Well, nothing fancy, just a logo, some nasty music… Let width:800px” />

And what about the targets? After cleaning the referers (Google being of course the top-1), 90 websites were reported as defaced. Some examples:

  • hxxp://www.dias.net.in (restored)
  • hxxp://unitedyouthmission.com/ (still defaced)
  • hxxp://learnwellme.com/ (restored)
  • hxxp://www.mekallifestyle.in/ (still defaced)
  • hxxp://politicalvartha.com/ (restored)
  • hxxp://www.fundookids.in/ (restored)

The group is still active and new websites are defaced almost every day. Once again, this is agood example of the power of HTTP referers.

[1]https://isc.sans.edu/forums/diary/How+your+pictures+may+affect+your+website+reputation/22151/
[2]https://pastebin.com/Zq8Ceebu
[3]http://www.magelang1337.com/
[4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favicon

Xavier Mertens (@xme)
ISC Handler – Freelance Security Consultant
PGP Key

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