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Oracle Security IT

Mysql.com Hacked, Made To Serve Malware 81

Orome1 writes "Mysql.com was compromised today, redirecting visitors to a page serving malware. Security firm Armorize detected the compromise through its website malware monitoring platform HackAlert, and has analyzed how the compromise of the site's visitors unfolded. The mysql.com website was injected with a script that generates an iFrame redirecting the visitors to a page where the BlackHole exploit pack is hosted." According to Brian Krebs, the exploit used to compromise the site was being shopped around last week for $3,000.
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Mysql.com Hacked, Made To Serve Malware

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    Blame Oracle.

    • Nah, it's just the Russians again. It isn't Anonymous trying to make it a point this time around, unfortunately.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I for one blame poor security.
  • by blair1q ( 305137 ) on Monday September 26, 2011 @05:59PM (#37521258) Journal

    Someone, a week ago, before anything bad actually happened, was openly selling the fact that mysql was cracked, and anyone seeing the ad knew it, but HackAlert is taking credit for "discovering" the cracking after something bad actually happened?

    How about if HackAlert, instead of crawling the web looking for whatever pattern of deviation defines its detection of a hack, crawls the blackhat markets for ads for open access to presumed secure sites.

    If they aren't doing that already, and crocking their detection speed...

    • by MacGyver2210 ( 1053110 ) on Monday September 26, 2011 @06:59PM (#37521724)

      Someone was shopping around the exploit used to hack the company's website - I am sure it had little to do with MySQL software unless it was an injection that got them access to change the site.

      • by EdIII ( 1114411 )

        I am sure it had little to do with MySQL software unless it was an injection that got them access to change the site

        No, it wasn't anything to do with a SQL injection attack. Levels of Irony that high actually warp space/time and I am sure some scientists would have registered it somewhere and reported it.

      • by blair1q ( 305137 )

        From the bottom link I got that the ad mentioned mysql. Maybe I misread it.

        Nope.

        The seller, ominously using the nickname “sourcec0de,” points out that mysql.com is a prime piece of real estate for anyone looking to plant an exploit kit: It boasts nearly 12 million visitors per month — almost 400,000 per day — and is ranked the 649th most-visited site by Alexa (Alexa currently rates it at 637).

        He offered to sell remote access to the first person who paid him at least USD $3,000, via the site’s escrow service, which guarantees that both parties are satisfied with the transaction before releasing the funds.

        He'd opened that site up and was selling the access to it.

        My question is, why is mysql.com's traffic that high?

  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26, 2011 @05:59PM (#37521260)

    little Bobby Tables is disappointed.

  • No user interaction (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Synerg1y ( 2169962 ) on Monday September 26, 2011 @06:00PM (#37521282)

    If the website redirects to an iframe (I thought these got phased out in like HTML4???) and tries to install malware, and there is no user interaction involved... what exactly is the browser doing?

    Being really stupid...
    http://antivirus.about.com/od/virusdescriptions/p/Blackhole-Exploit-Kit.htm [about.com]

    On that note, noscript, greasemonkey w/ script, and any addon that allows the blocking of the iframe tag should keep you safe, but then again how often do you visit mysql.com? :)

    • Forgot to mention TOR blocks these kinds of redirects.

    • If the website redirects to an iframe (I thought these got phased out in like HTML4???)

      You're thinking of framesets. Iframes are used far, far more now in conjunction with AJAXy stuff and embedding third-party crap than they were last decade.

  • If SQLi took down MySQL there's a pun about "hackception" here somewhere.
  • Already Fixed (Score:3, Informative)

    by InvisibleSoul ( 882722 ) on Monday September 26, 2011 @06:02PM (#37521298)
    http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/240609/mysqlcom_hacked_to_serve_malware.html [pcworld.com] Article says the site was already fixed as of 11am PST.
    • by sphix42 ( 144155 )

      Yea, as good an idea as it is to send more traffic to a hacked site, I appreciate /. handling. And since it's fixed and after 5 on the east coast that means a lot of dumb users won't deliberately go to a hacked site. That isn't to say the east coast is sub-prime, there's just a higher density.

  • I watched the video on the page, showing the step-by-step of the exploit working, and the trace of what it did.

    Informative and interesting.

    Seems if a person did _not_ have java enabled in their browser, then the attack would have failed.

    • by mclearn ( 86140 ) on Monday September 26, 2011 @06:28PM (#37521518) Homepage
      I believe it was a multi-tiered attack in that Java, Flash, and PDF exploits were all tried. What is shown in the video is that the Java attack was successful.
      • A while back, I decided I don't need java, adobe acrobat or flash on my work machines (too much attack surface).

        • A while back, I decided I don't need java, adobe acrobat or flash on my work machines (too much attack surface).

          My philosophy is that you disable/uninstall everything and the switch it back on when you need it. Sometimes it is a pain, but it is better than browsing the net with a big "kick me" sign on your virtual back.

          I found it strange that the Krebs on Security site linked in the summary would state that we should avoid using Java for security reasons, but then assume that we would be able to view an embedded youtube video on his page. Surely anyone interested in security would just link to the youtube page rather

        • by Gutboy ( 587531 ) on Monday September 26, 2011 @11:24PM (#37523252)
          Good thing HTML5 won't need all those things to run code on your machine.
        • If you can do that, more power to you. In my case, I need the Java plugin for a number of core work functions:
          • The corporate expense-reporting application
          • The desktop/webcam/slide-sharing portion of the corporate standard audio/video-conferencing platform
          • The corporate standard e-learning platform (which was used to deliver "data security and privacy" training 4Q last year)
          • The download-assistant at the internal site where I obtain official copies of our software products (customers use a different inte
  • Obligation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fnord666 ( 889225 ) on Monday September 26, 2011 @07:09PM (#37521784) Journal

    The disclosure caught my eye because just a few days ago I saw evidence that administrative access to mysql.com was being sold in the hacker underground for just $3,000.

    At what point should Mr. Krebs have felt some sort of obligation to inform the owners of mysql.com that their root login was being actively shopped?

    • by Qzukk ( 229616 )

      When mysql.com's admins offer to pay him $3050 so he'd make a profit?

    • Re:Obligation (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26, 2011 @08:13PM (#37522178)

      As someone who's done ... even... gentle research. I hate to say...I resent the implication of your comment.

      It's mysql, so they aren't exactly a bunch of clowns... but the moment you tell people--you get suspicion thrown on you. If you tell them anonymously, you get *even more* suspicion thrown on you. For further examples, you need only look at the classic tuttle/centos story...
      http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/24/tuttle_centos/ . Now imagine what happens if you /actually/ report a real issue.

      As somebody who feels *fortunate* to have not been investigated in the past due to no small measure of proxy use--I have to say...by asking Krebbs to disclose this, you're asking him to accept undue risk. The last time I reported a /large/ issue with a private server, the server I used was scanned within 50 minutes from IP's originating within the FBI. Sorry... fuck you all--there's no free advice given ever again.

      Quite frankly, other people's problems aren't our job. They nearly aren't our business either save when they lie and advertise they're safe and there's a client curious, or we're looking to spot something... At which point they can pony up for the advice like every other consumer in the market.

      TLDR: There is no obligation. It's at best a generous act of good will that most people really don't deserve anyway.

  • I ain't taking any security certification from them... the MySQL 1&2 was enough.
  • It was really just a matter of time before Oracle started trying to force MySQL users to move to their expensive proprietary solutions. It just happened a bit....What's that? ........

    Oh, NEVERMIND!

    • It was really just a matter of time before Oracle started trying to force MySQL users to move to their expensive proprietary solutions.

      The one where you need to add additional objects to the database just to auto-increment a fucking primary key?

  • by InitHello ( 858127 ) on Monday September 26, 2011 @07:34PM (#37521964)
    I would laugh (hard) if the exploit involved SQL injection.
    • Nah, that would be more appropriate if (just for example) Hibernates website was exploited via SQL injection.

      SQL injection isn't generally regarded as a database flaw.

      • Yeah, but you'd think a database company with SQL in its name would be aware of common intrusion attempts using SQL.

      • by lennier ( 44736 )

        SQL injection isn't generally regarded as a database flaw.

        It should be. The design of SQL itself promotes injection attacks. A decently secure database wouldn't support plain-text SQL query strings as an API.

        Even a simple S-expression translation of SQL using parentheses instead of quotes would be more secure, because you could verify that the parens balanced before accepting an expression. SQL's syntax is an artifact of the 1970s COBOL-era idea that "if a mathematical expression sort of looks halfway like English, it will be simple to use". In fact, it isn't, and

  • ... has been hacked by Amazon

    slashdot frenzy erupts in 3... 2... 1...

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