Contributors

Jeremiah Grossman
(WhiteHat Security)

Ofer Shezaf
(Breach Security) [Project Leader]

The Web Hacking Incidents Database
Last update:17 February 2008

List of Incidents for a Classification

Please note that classifications are a new feature and not all entries in WHID are already classified, so when you get a certain number of entries for a classification, WHID might have more records matching that classification that we did not classify yet. We hope to complete the classification process soon.

Select classification:
Attack Method, Country, Location, Origin, Outcome, Software, Vertical

Select criteria for classification "Outcome":
Blackmail, Chaos, Deceit, Defacement, Disclosure Only, Downtime, Extortion, Identity Theft, Information Warfare, Leakage of Information, Link Spam, Loss of Sales, Monetary Loss, Phishing, Planting of Malware, Political Defacement, Spam, Worm


List of incidents for which Outcome is Downtime
4 incidents listed
WHID 2008-10: Chinese hacker steals user information on 18 MILLION online shoppers at Auction.co.kr
Reported: 12 February 2008
Occurred: 10 February 2008

Classifications:

  • Attack Method: Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
  • Country: Korea
  • Origin: China
  • Outcome: Downtime
  • Outcome: Leakage of Information
  • Vertical: Retail

A Korean e-commerce site was hacked and a staggering number of record, 18 million, where stolen. In the US this would be front news. We don't know if it was front news in Korea, but did not get to the international media.

The attack description is vague but can be best described as session hijacking.

This incident is a great example of the lack of sufficient international coverage at WHID. Help us by sending us non English incidents! After all, it is not English speakers only that get hacked, but rather us, the WHID maintainers that speak only this language.

References:

WHID 2008-04: RIAA web site cleared
Reported: 22 January 2008
Occurred: 20 January 2008

Classifications:

  • Attack Method: Cross Site Scripting (XSS)
  • Attack Method: SQL Injection
  • Attack Method: Denial of Service
  • Attack Method: SQL Injection
  • Country: Global
  • Country: USA
  • Outcome: Defacement
  • Outcome: Downtime
  • Outcome: Defacement
  • Vertical: Entertainment

The web site of RIAA, the Recording Industry Association of America was attacked twice using SQL injection over the weekend. First a query that takes particularly long time was posted on a social network web site causing a distributed denial of service attack against the site. Later on hackers found and abused additional SQL injection and XSS vulnerabilities resulting in major defacement of the site.

References:

WHID 2007-60: The blog of a Cambridge University security team hacked
Reported: 19 December 2007
Occurred: 27 October 2007

Classifications:

  • Attack Method: Known Vulnerability
  • Attack Method: Insufficient Authentication
  • Attack Method: SQL Injection
  • Country: UK
  • Outcome: Downtime
  • Software: WordPress
  • Vertical: Education

This story probably represents hundreds of similar stories. Many of us have come to rely on open source software, which is useful, feature reach and free. It enables us access to tools available to a few only a couple of years ago. The downside is that this easy availability means that many use the tools without having the time, resources and expertise to protect them. Systems such as phpBB and WordPress are good examples of very popular open source systems that require constant attention in order to maintain secure. 

I am sure that the guys at Light Blue Touchpaper have the expertise to protect their WordPress installation, but they don’t have the time. They made the compromise between ease of management of their web site and its security. Actually my personal blog might be just as vulnerable, since as I write this I am very much not paying attention to its security. 

Apart from, or actually because of  the fact that the victims are security experts, this story is noteworthy due to two additional twists in the plot:

  • Zero day exploit in the wild - the attacker penetrated twice, once using a known SQL injection vulnerability, but the second time using a yet unknown vulnerability in WordPress, which was reverse engineered and published for the first time by the people at Light Blue Touchpaper.
  • The researchers found that they can use Google to retrieve the hashed password of the hacker. Google has become so big that it actually allows efficient encrypted passwords lookup.

References:

WHID 2007-36: Server hacked through holes in Confixx management software
Reported: 12 August 2007
Occurred: 01 August 2007

Classifications:

  • Attack Method: Known Vulnerability
  • Attack Method: OS Commanding
  • Country: Germany
  • Outcome: Downtime
  • Software: Confixx
  • Vertical: Service Providers

A command injection vulnerability at 1&1, a large German hosting provider, lead to denial of service and possible home page modification at 30 servers and up to 1700 web sites.

References:



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