{"id":18892,"date":"2022-04-29T00:10:08","date_gmt":"2022-04-29T08:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2022\/04\/29\/news-12625\/"},"modified":"2022-04-29T00:10:08","modified_gmt":"2022-04-29T08:10:08","slug":"news-12625","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2022\/04\/29\/news-12625\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine government and pro-Ukrainian sites hit by DDoS attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Credit to Author: Malwarebytes Labs| Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2022 08:01:46 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Computer Emergency Response Team in Ukraine (CERT-UA) has announced that Ukraine government web portals and pro-Ukraine sites are subjected to ongoing DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks. They don&#8217;t currently know who is behind these attacks.<\/p>\n<p>The attack involves injecting a malicious JavaScript (JS)\u2014officially named &#8220;BrownFlood&#8221;\u2014into compromised WordPress sites, arming them with the ability to DDoS sites. The script, which is encoded in base64 to avoid detection, is injected into the HTML structure of the sites&#8217; main files. Whoever visits these sites are then turned into an unknowing accomplice to an online attack they are unaware of.<\/p>\n<p>Target URLs are defined in the code.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"56114\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/security-world\/2022\/04\/ukraine-government-and-pro-ukrainian-sites-hit-by-ddos-attacks\/attachment\/wp-with-malcode\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/WP-with-malcode.png\" data-orig-size=\"1474,942\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"WP-with-malcode\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/WP-with-malcode-300x192.png\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/WP-with-malcode-600x383.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"383\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/WP-with-malcode-600x383.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-56114\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/WP-with-malcode-600x383.png 600w, https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/WP-with-malcode-300x192.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/WP-with-malcode.png 1474w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption><em>BrownFlood in a compromised WordPress site (Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/cert-gov-ua.translate.goog\/article\/39923?_x_tr_sl=uk&amp;_x_tr_tl=en&amp;_x_tr_hl=en&amp;_x_tr_pto=wapp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">CERT-UA<\/a>)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Even the owners of these compromised WordPress sites do not realize that they were involuntarily signed up for a cause against Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bleepingcomputer.com\/news\/security\/ukraine-targeted-by-ddos-attacks-from-compromised-wordpress-sites\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">BleepingComputer revealed<\/a> that the same JS script shared on GitHub had been involved in a DDoS attack a month ago against a smaller pool of pro-Ukraine sites. It then came to light that a particular pro-Ukrainian site had used the same DDoS code to target Russian sites.<\/p>\n<p>CERT-UA worked closely with the National Bank of Ukraine to strengthen its defensive stance against DDoS attacks. The agency also informed WordPress site owners of their compromise and provided guidance on detecting and removing the malicious JS.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"56115\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/security-world\/2022\/04\/ukraine-government-and-pro-ukrainian-sites-hit-by-ddos-attacks\/attachment\/look-for-this\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/look-for-this.png\" data-orig-size=\"2978,498\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"look-for-this\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/look-for-this-300x50.png\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/look-for-this-600x100.png\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"600\" height=\"100\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/look-for-this-600x100.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-56115\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/look-for-this-600x100.png 600w, https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/look-for-this-300x50.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/look-for-this-1536x257.png 1536w, https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/look-for-this-2048x342.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption><em>Screenshot of event log WordPress admins should watch out for to know if they are infected (Source: CERT-UA)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>CERT-UA listed three recommendations for WordPress site admins to follow, which we have replicated the translated version of below:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Take steps to detect and remove malicious JavaScript code.<\/li>\n<li>Provide up-to-date [active plug-ins] and up-to-date support for website content management systems (CMS).<\/li>\n<li>Restrict access to website management pages.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>The agency also provided a detection tool (<a href=\"https:\/\/cert-gov-ua.translate.goog\/article\/39923?_x_tr_sl=uk&amp;_x_tr_tl=en&amp;_x_tr_hl=en&amp;_x_tr_pto=wapp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">scroll down to the bottom of the page<\/a>) admins can use to scan their sites.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/security-world\/2022\/04\/ukraine-government-and-pro-ukrainian-sites-hit-by-ddos-attacks\/\">Ukraine government and pro-Ukrainian sites hit by DDoS attacks<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\">Malwarebytes Labs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/security-world\/2022\/04\/ukraine-government-and-pro-ukrainian-sites-hit-by-ddos-attacks\/\" target=\"bwo\" >https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/feed\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Credit to Author: Malwarebytes Labs| Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2022 08:01:46 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We can&#8217;t tell which party made the first move, but both the pro-Ukraine and Russian sides have been exchanging DDoS attacks.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/security-world\/2022\/04\/ukraine-government-and-pro-ukrainian-sites-hit-by-ddos-attacks\/\">Ukraine government and pro-Ukrainian sites hit by DDoS attacks<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\">Malwarebytes Labs<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[10488,10378],"tags":[25892,25893,25894,10514,17689,14189,11863,10497,16341],"class_list":["post-18892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malwarebytes","category-security","tag-brownflood","tag-cert-ua","tag-compromised-wordpress-sites","tag-ddos","tag-ddos-attack","tag-distributed-denial-of-service-attack","tag-github","tag-security-world","tag-wordpress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}