Wordfence Weekly September 18 2019 – September 24 2019

A weekly report of noteworthy threat data by the Defiant threat intelligence team.

Notable Vulnerabilities

Name: Rich Reviews <= 1.7.4 - Unauthenticated Plugin Options Update
Description: Unauthenticated attackers can modify the values of the plugin’s options, leading to XSS.
Type: A5 – Broken Access Control

Name: DELUCKS SEO <= 2.1.7 - Unauthenticated Options Update
Description: Unauthenticated attackers can modify the values of the plugin’s options, leading to XSS.
Type: A5 – Broken Access Control

Name: Motors Car Dealer & Classified Ads < 1.4.1 - Multiple Issues
Description: Multiple issues, including an XSS via unauthenticated plugin options update.
Type: A5 – Broken Access Control

Most Common New Infections

Malware samples identified on the greatest count of newly infected sites.

MD5	Signature	Description	Example File Names
CEC9A529B43D84F0A0E3624372CD9C51	Backdoor:PHP/WP-VCD.5409	Infected core file, triggers execution of another malicious script.	post.php
7D9A88B33CD777B0949A3033512C1D08	Backdoor:PHP/wp-vcd.5476	Backdoor associated with SEO spam injections.	wp-vcd.php
701CB9E0ACF43569D3C539B073DAAF2F	Spam:PHP/oclasinsert.5483	SEO spam code injector.	wp-tmp.php
75234791B9CA71A16FC8432BE4F6A5D0	Backdoor:PHP/wp-vcd.5476	Backdoor associated with SEO spam injections.	wp-vcd.php
380FA777B8C37FB60811E5972391261B	Suspicious:PHP/evalB64.4068	WebShellOrb PHP webshell.	wp-update.php, ob.php, aw.php, and others.

IPs Attacking Most Sites

Rank	Prev.	IP Address	ASN	Country
1	6	47.252.4.36	45102 (Alibaba (US) Technology Co., Ltd.)	US
2	—	47.89.208.37	45102 (Alibaba (US) Technology Co., Ltd.)	US
3	—	51.89.224.145	16276 (OVH SAS)	GB
4	4	165.227.48.147	14061 (DigitalOcean, LLC)	US
5	8	192.99.38.186	16276 (OVH SAS)	CA
6	—	68.183.76.157	14061 (DigitalOcean, LLC)	DE
7	—	158.69.150.55	16276 (OVH SAS)	BR
8	—	178.128.193.158	14061 (DigitalOcean, LLC)	DE
9	10	159.203.86.82	14061 (DigitalOcean, LLC)	US
10	—	217.182.95.250	16276 (OVH SAS)	FR

New Tracked Domains

Domain Name	Date Added	Current Status	Notes
fastherbsmart.su	09/18/2019	Down	Redirect target seen in malware samples.
bremen-apotheke.com	09/20/2019	Up	Pharmaceutical spam.
p79479.clksite.com	09/22/2019	Up	Referenced in malware samples.

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Recent Issues

Wordfence Weekly October 30 2019 – November 05 2019

This edition of Wordfence Weekly follows a brief hiatus from our team travelling to WordCamp US last week. As you may have guessed following the release of the research behind WP-VCD, the campaign still makes up four of the five slots in our new infection chart.

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Wordfence Weekly October 16 2019 – October 22 2019

In this week's Wordfence Weekly, we've got three vulnerabilities disclosed by the Wordfence team associated with WordPress plugins and themes. A new face appears in the top malware infections list, a script built seemingly only to delete itself when told to. In the attacking IP charts, we see a new ASN joining the rankings: Microsoft Corporation appears three times in the top ten.

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Wordfence Weekly October 09 2019 – October 15 2019

This week saw the release of WordPress 5.2.4, a security release which fixed a number of core vulnerabilities. None of the vulnerabilities are severe enough to suggest widespread abuse, but it's always a good idea to update. A big surprise comes from our attacking IP data, as not a single IP address from last week's rankings was present this week. The same cannot be said of the malware data, as WP-VCD variants continue to maintain a firm hold of the chart.

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Wordfence Weekly October 02 2019 – October 08 2019

This week, three unique variants of the same WP-VCD spam injector made it to the top five new infections, while the other two positions were held by ancillary scripts from the same campaign. A GoDaddy server is the fifth most malicious IP address this week, suggesting infected sites present on the host. The remainder of the list was divided between cloud hosts OVH SAS and DigitalOcean, as seen commonly in recent weeks.

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Wordfence Weekly September 25 2019 – October 01 2019

In this week's Wordfence Weekly, we see a typical array of familiar data. WP-VCD continues to remain the most common new set of infections, and cloud providers DigitalOcean and OVH SAS contribute considerably to the list of top attacking IP addresses. This edition features three vulnerabilities from the past week, including the GiveWP vulnerability disclosed by our own Chloe Chamberland.

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Wordfence Weekly September 11 2019 – September 17 2019

In this Wordfence Weekly we share five new domains which have been added to our blacklist for their association with spamming and malvertising. A slightly modified variant of WP-VCD's wp-tmp.php script reaches the top of the malware chart, while the rest has remained stable from previous weeks. Lastly, several new IP addresses have reached the top ten attacking hosts during a week where the Wordfence firewall detected a notable surge in activity.

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Wordfence Weekly September 04 2019 – September 10 2019

This edition of Wordfence Weekly includes a number of vulnerabilities recently patched in WordPress core version 5.2.3. All WordPress users are recommended to ensure this security patch has been applied as soon as possible. WP-VCD and related malware still hold the top most common new infections, while most of the top attacking IP addresses have rotated out.

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Wordfence Weekly August 28 2019 – September 03 2019

This week we see a continued trend of WP-VCD infections on the top malware chart. Two newly tracked domains have been added, which are hosting malicious scripts referenced by other malware samples. Last, the popular Formidable Forms plugin was recently patched to improve its output sanitization, suggesting exploitability in its earlier versions.

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Wordfence Weekly August 21 2019 – August 27 2019

This week's Wordfence Weekly sees a continued trend of new WP-VCD infections taking over the Most Common New Infections chart. In Attacking IPs, the top two addresses from last week retain their positions while the rest of the list contains new IPs from a variety of hosts. Additionally, we're tracking some new malvertising domains as well as a MySQL host used by attackers taking over unfinished WordPress installs.

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Wordfence Weekly August 14 2019 – August 20 2019

In this Wordfence Weekly, we've got a Directory Traversal vulnerability in the highly popular WP Fastest Cache plugin. In the malware rankings, we see a number of samples associated with the WP_VCD SEO spam campaign as well as more PHP backdoor scripts. Also, this week's attacking IP rankings have returned to a typical spread of activity, with attacks from OVH SAS and DigitalOcean servers controlling the board.

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Wordfence Weekly August 07 2019 – August 13 2019

The prevalence of attacks from US-based host QuadraNet continues in this edition of Wordfence Weekly. Additionally, a few new noteworthy vulnerabilities have popped up, which are each seeing their own attacks. In particular, we've begun tracking some new domains associated with malicious redirects.

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Wordfence Weekly July 31 2019 – August 06 2019

This week, the list of the top IPs attacking WordPress sees a sudden appearance of seven addresses from the US-based hosting provider QuadraNet Enterprises LLC. In the tracked domains, we've added some illegitimate download sites referenced in malicious samples discovered by our site cleaning team.

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Wordfence Weekly July 24 2019 – July 30 2019

July's final Wordfence Weekly sees some news items regarding Marcus Hutchins' sentencing and a data breach from Capital One. Under the week's new tracked domains, we list xn--google-analytcs-xpb[.]com, a punycode domain masquerading as a Google Analytics domain when decoded. Malware trends and common attacking IPs remain stable, though OVH SAS's longtime domination of the attacking IP rankings continues to wane.

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Wordfence Weekly July 17 2019 – July 23 2019

This week's Wordfence Weekly shows an increase in US-based attack traffic, including an IP from popular web host GoDaddy. We're also seeing a rise in infected sites where the PHP webshell "Ironshell" is present. In the news, Equifax is slated to pay a settlement following its 2017 data breach and the nation of Kazakhstan is attempting to man-in-the-middle the internet traffic of its citizens.

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Wordfence Weekly July 10 2019 – July 16 2019

This week saw an uptick in malicious network activity from Chinese hosts, while IPs associated with OVH SAS have begun to pull back. We've begun tracking new domains associated with malvertising campaigns, while familiar backdoor scripts remain the top new infections of the week. In the news, an Instagram access control flaw could have allowed hackers to take over any account, and Apple put its foot down by removing hidden, vulnerable webservers from Zoom clients.

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