I was just looking over some 404 logs on a few of my less popular Wordpress blogs that only get under 100 hits a month (I know, I really need to drop these or do something with them). I use the Redirection plugin so I can see what URL’s people are entering that result in the 404. To my surprise almost all of the hits (and there are hundreds of them) look like attacks from hackers trying to gain control of my tiny little blog. Things like admin access, searching for authors, plugins that have security leaks, etc.
I just don’t understand why they are doing this. What exactly is it that these hackers are trying to gain? I mean, I can understand a hacker going after a big site like Ebay or Amazon, or even a huge gay porn site like Sean Cody or Corbin Fisher, but what could they possibly hope to gain by cracking my tiny little blog? Do they want to take it over to place their own content? Heck, that would probably boost my traffic so I’d like that!
Even if they are successful I will find out and just go into ftp and delete everything they uploaded, or notify my host and have them take care of it. These blogs have very little content on them (hence the small traffic numbers) so its no skin off my back if I need to delete them and start over.
I was wondering if some of you veteran webmasters have any insight into this weird, wasteful behavior.
Re: Attempts to hack my little blog: what’s the point?
You need to look at it from a different perspective. They aren’t interested in your traffic or your website at all. They’re only interest in seeing if they can find a backdoor to gain control of your machine. If they do so and play nice more than likely you or your host wouldn’t notice them. Once they have control of your machine they can use it to send out thousand of spam emails, participate in DOS attacks or any other myriad of illegal activities.
It’s not your content or traffic… It’s the machine itself.
I would bet money that 404 traffic your seeing is coming from bots set up on other machines that where compromised looking for new machines to compromise.
Re: Attempts to hack my little blog: what’s the point?
[QUOTE=naked;144937]
I was wondering if some of you veteran webmasters have any insight into this weird, wasteful behavior.[/QUOTE]
These are fat spotty teens living in their mothers basement, wasting their lives stuffing their faces with trash food and believing that completing a game is an “achievement”. The only way they feel they can gain peer respect is by playing the games their peers play, they’re underdeveloped socially and view this as a way of gaining some kind of credibility or notoriety in their peer group.
It’s really rather sad.
It doesn’t matter how small a site is, if they can get in they will, often trashing it, putting up their own page and then showing it off to all their fellow maladjusted friends.
As I understand it, it’s also a way of growing a network of infected machines, so they infect thousands of servers and can then use those machines to run DDoS attacks. That’s usually the bigger players though. It’s more likely you’re dealing with a greasy oik who’s biggest achievement in life so far is committing to taking time out of their busy schedule of screaming abuse at other gamers over the internet and masturbating 15 times a day to having a shower once a week.
Re: Attempts to hack my little blog: what’s the point?
I feel your pain, as I am still cleaning up bot hacks to my little blog empire. I had an article draft started about things to do to tighten up security for my AdultBlogBuilder website, and your post has prompted me to finish it. It’s now live: Arrggh! My Site Has Been Hacked!
It’s a bit of a long read, but will hopefully give you some tips and tools to use to secure your blogs!
Re: Attempts to hack my little blog: what’s the point?
lol Indeed.
Sorry to hear this naked. I hope things stay ok for you.
Sorry to hear about your attack too Bec. Horrible.
There are so many pathetic, abominable people on this planet. To mark one’s life achievements by how many sites they can infiltrate and destroy is far beyond my realm of thinking. It doesn’t stop there though with some people, that’s for sure.
When I could still ride a mountain bike - I’m now disabled from the waist down - I actually had vehicle drivers purposely hit me with their side view mirrors while I was going along at the side of the road. They would admit to doing it on purpose. For the record, I was always a cautious cyclist and never played chicken - like some totally idiotic cyclists do - with vehicles. I was 260 pounds in weight - me, plus the weight of the bike. I’d have to be a complete idiot to compete with a 3000 vehicle.
If one were to analyze the entire planet I’d bet that 30% need to be locked up and never let out. I hope I’m wrong, but looking back over the past decade it really seems that way. It comes with a massively growing earthly population I suppose.
Re: Attempts to hack my little blog: what’s the point?
Bec, i havent had chance to read your article, but heres a few tips quickly.
IP whitelist /wp-admin/ so no one without YOUR ip, can read / write to that directory unless their IP is whitelisted in HTAccess. Anyone trying to connect will just get ‘forbidden’.
Remove any unused plugins and themes.
Make sure you set the correct permissions for your wordpress files, under no circumstances should you use 777.
**** OPEN X *****
People keep saying how unreliable openX is as it keeps getting hacked. I have never had a single issue, just make sure you have no permissions set to 777. Also you need to IP whitelist the /admin/ directory, so people cant connect unless they have a verified IP.
Re: Attempts to hack my little blog: what’s the point?
I don’t know what FTP program you use, I personally use FileZilla, and when I’m connected to my server I can see file name, file size, last date modified and file permissions, and file ownership. If you see drwxrwxrwx under permissions - then it is set to 777. Right click on that file or folder and there should be a change permissions option. Click it and a popup opens. Make the necessary file change by either typing over the 777 or remove the write permissions from group and public for 755 or whatever you need … and click OK.
Re: Attempts to hack my little blog: what’s the point?
… and a lot of times you can tell if it wants 777 to stay that way when you read the install instructions. It may ask for it temporarily, and then you put it back to a different chmod number, and that’s OK, but if it needs 777 open for the plugin to work (ie: it needs to constantly write to your database/files) … then look for a different plugin.
Removing unused plugins and themes is a biggie. This includes the ones WordPress automatically supplies you with. While you may not use that theme or plugin, it can still be injected with malicious code, and a hacker, if he knows it’s infected, can use it to get to other files you are using.
For the record, I was always a cautious cyclist and never played chicken - like some totally idiotic cyclists do - with vehicles. I was 260 pounds in weight - me, plus the weight of the bike. I’d have to be a complete idiot to compete with a 3000 vehicle.