Mass Hacks Likely to Hang Around for a While

In March I blogged about a round of mass Web site compromises. Since then there have been several other instances discovered, as well as a couple of smoking guns. The net net is that the bad guys are using automated tools to find and attack Web applications that are vulnerable to SQL-injection attacks. Many of these applications are homegrown and thus there is no patch or hotfix for administrators to install. This means that simply removing the injected malicious code won’t last long.

Just now I was reviewing the latest batch of hacked sites, and I noticed pages that were previously compromised and “repaired,” only to be compromised again. The entry point for these attacks must be closed in order to thwart future attacks. This means that underlying code must be audited and improper input validation must be corrected. And given that many Web administrators install out-of-support freeware and shareware applications, we can expect many sites to remain vulnerable for a very long time.

McAfee’s Foundstone Hackme Shipping Tool can be a useful resource for those in need of a better understanding of how common Web application attacks occur and how to properly code against them.