Virus code injected in PHP Files - php

Question

I own a website running on LAMP - Linux, Apache, mySQL and PHP. In the past 2-3 weeks the PHP and jQuery files on my website have become infected from malware from a site called gumblar.cn
I can't understand how does this malware get into my PHP files and how do I prevent it from happening again and again.
Any ideas?
UPDATE:
Looks like it is a cpanel exploit

Answer 1

Your site is cracked, so the crackers simply replace your files.
You should always upgrade your Linux OS, Apache, MySQL, PHP, and the web PHP programs whenever a security alert is announced.
Linux servers running open services without upgrading them regularly are the most vulnerable boxes on internet.

Answer 2

No one here can provide a conclusive solution based on the information you provided, so all we can suggest is that you follow good security practices and standards and correct any weak points immediately.
Make sure your software is up-to-date. It's very possible to gain access to local files through exploits in PHP programs, so keep any third-party applications you're running on their latest versions (especially very widespread programs like Wordpress and phpBB), and do whatever you can to ensure that your server is running the correct versions of its services (PHP, Apache, etc.).
Use strong passwords. A strong password is a long, random list of characters. It should have nothing to do with your life, it should have no readily available acronyms or mnemonics, it should not resemble a dictionary word, and it should contain a healthy interspersing of different characters; numbers, letters of different cases, and symbols. It should also be reasonably long, ideally more than 26 characters. This should help keep people from bruteforcing your credentials for enough time for competent sysadmins to take action against the attackers.
Work with the administrators at your hosting provider to understand what happened in this particular case and do things to correct it. They may not have noticed anything unusual; for instance, if you have an easy password, or if this attack was perpetrated by a trusted individual, or if you have an unpatched exploit in a custom PHP application, there would be nothing to indicate an improper use.
Shared hosts also have many people with access to the same local machine, so things like file permissions and patching of locally-accessible exploits both within your application and generally is very important. Make sure your host has good policies on this and make sure that none of your software unequivocally trusts local connections or users.
The nature of the attack (an import of malware from a site that appears to do this kind of thing en masse) suggests that you were running an exploitable application or that your username/password combination was not sufficiently strong, but the administrators at your provider are really the only ones able to supply accurate details on how this happened. Good luck. :)

Answer 3

Chances are, there is an application on your server with a known vulnerability that has been attacked, and something has modified files on your web site or installed a new file.
When searching for information on gumblar.cn, it looks like they use a trojan called JS-Redirector-H. Not sure if this is what is involved here.
Fixing this may involve restoring your web site from backup, if you have no way of knowing what has been modified. If you have source control or a recent version, you may be able to do a whole-site diff. But you will also need to fix the security vulnerability that allowed this to happen in the first place.
Chances are it's some insecure app, or an app you installed some time ago but have not updated recently. A few people who have complained about this mentioned that they use Gallery (ie PHP Gallery). Though I'm not sure if that's connected.
If you are not the server administrator, talk to the server admin. They may be able to help, and it would be wise to let them know about this.

Answer 4

Google Advisory:
http://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?client=Firefox&hl=en-US&site=http://gumblar.cn (linking doesn't work)
First, contact your hosting company and report this. If this is server-wide, they need to know about it.
The most common cause of infections like this is vulnerable popular PHP software (such as PHPBB, Mamboserver and other popular systems). If you're running any 3rd party PHP code, make sure you have the latest version.
If you've determined that this only affects your site, restore from a backup. If you don't have any backups, try re-installing everything (you can probably migrate the database) you have (to the latest version) and go through your own PHP code (if any).

Answer 5

PHP Programs are actually simple text files that run on the server by the PHP interpreter. if your application is infected, then I think there are tow posiibilities:
1.they have used some security hole in YOUR application to inject some code into your server, so now they have changed some of your PHP files, or some of your database information.
if this is the case, you better double check every single place where you are fetching information from the user (text inputs, file uploads, cookie values, ...), make sure everything is well filtered. this is very common security practice to filter anything that comes from the user. you also better make sure that the data that is currently saved in your database (or file system) is clean. I suggest using Zend_Filter component of the Zend Framework to filter user input. there are many full featured filter libraries out there.
2.they could have run some program on your server, that is affecting your PHP source files. so somehow they have accomplished running some program/script your server, that is changing your application.
if this is the case, I suggest your check all your server processes and make sure you know every process that is running. although I think this is less possible.

Answer 6

Ok, this is NOT a programming question and SO is not the place for this because if we would tolerate such questions here we would soon be a first aid / support site for ppl with bad shared hosting accounts.
I only didn't vote for closing because I feel bad turning a few ppl down who are probably feeling really bad about a problem they don't have the knowledge to fix.
First of all: google for gumblar.cn, there is a growing number of potentialy helpful posts accumulating as we speak.
If you're a real beginner and you feel you don't get any of the things in the answers here then just do the following:
Get a new host
Google for information about all your software until you know, if the software is safe. If it's not, don't use it, until the developers have fixed the problem. An example of a not secure software is 'Galery'.
Install all your software (the secure ones only) FRESH INSTALL!!
Copy over static files (like images) to the new server. Do NOT copy over any dynamic files, like php scripts, as they could be infected.
Don't upload any of your own PHP scripts until you've checked them for security vulnerabilities. If you don't know how to do this, don't upload anything before you've learned about these things.

Answer 7

I have been affected by this virus/malware and currently cleaning up. I hope this will be helpful:
1) You most likely have a TROJAN on your PC. To verify this simply run (Start > Run... or Windows key + R) and type "cmd" or "regedit". If either of those doesnt open its window as expected, you have the Js:Redirector trojan. You can also verify that the anti virus programs aVast and Malware Bytes can not connect to updates for some reason (sneaky trojan that is). Plus, you'll notice that the Security program of the Control Panel was disabled, you wouldn't have seen a notification in the tray icons to tell you that the virus protection was disabled.
2) This is a very recent exploit, apparently of vulnerabilities inflash or pdf plugins, thus you are not safe even if you didn't use Internet Explorer!
As for me, I believe because I hate programs slowing down my PC, I have my Windows Updates on "manual", and I didn't have resident protection (scanning of all web connections, etc), and I was probably infected by visiting another hacked site which was not blacklisted yet. Also I was over confident in non-IE browsers! I sometimes ignore the blacklist warning as I am curious about what the scripts do etc, and forgot once again just how BAD Windows really is. Conclusion: leave Windows Updates on automatic, have minimal resident protection (aVast Web Shield + Network Shield).
3) Because this is a trojan that sends back your FTP password, it doesn't matter how good your password was!
4) Try to lceanup your PC with Malware or aVast, it will find a file ending with ".ctv"
You MUST have a virus database dated 14 May or more recent. If you can't update (as explained above), then follow these instructions (you'll need to extrapolate but basically you have a file, the name may vary, which is pointed in the registry, and use HiJackThis to remove it, once you rebout without this file excuted, all is fine)
5) Of course update your passwords, BUT make sure the trojan is removed first!
6) For an exact list of all pages modified try to get a FTP log and you'll find the IP of the script/hacker and all touched files.
7) If you have a complete local copy of the "production" environment, then the safest is to delete ALL the site on the server, and re-upload all files.
8) During the clean up process DONT visit your infected site, or you will re-install the trojan! If you have the latest aVast Home Edition and the "Web Shield" protection it will give you a warning and block the page from being executed by your browser.

Answer 8

like Francis mentioned, try to get your hosting company to make sure their software is up to date.
On your side, change your ftp password to something completely obscure as soon as possible. I've seen this happen to people before. What these 'hackers' do is a brute force on your ftp account, download a couple of files, modify them slightly, and then re-upload the infected copies. If you have access to the ftp log files you'll probably see a connection to your account from an IP other than yours. You may be able to submit this to your hosting company and ask them to black-list that IP from accessing their servers.

Answer 9

That website (gumblar.cn that you mentioned) is being tested for malware. You can monitor results here: http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/gumblar.cn/postid?p=1659540

Answer 10

I had something like this happen to me at an old hosting provider. Somehow, someone, was able to infect Apache in some way so that a special header was injected into all my PHP files which caused the browser to try to download and run in the browser. While they got it fixed, the quick solution was to take down all my PHP files, and change my index file a plain HTML file. Whether or not this stops the problem for you depends on how the server is infected. The best thing and probably most responsible thing you can do is to protect your visitors by taking down site, and if possible (if text files aren't infected), display a message stating that if they visited recently they may have been infected.
Needless to say, I switched hosting providers quick soon after my site was infected. My hosting provider was pretty bad in a lot of other ways, but this was pretty much the final straw.