Fwd: [ PRIVACY Forum ] Huge attack on WordPress sites could spawn never-before-seen super botnet

Sat Apr 13 03:16:26 UTC 2013

I don't know if it's related, but Linode sent out an email earlier
that all account passwords (for all customers) must be reset.
Apparently one of their customers was succesfully exploited, and out
of an abundance of caution, they acting as if the attackers got the
Linode password hashes.

On Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 8:11 PM, Cody Robertson <cody at hawkhost.com> wrote:
> We're seeing heavy amounts of traffic / attacks as well - it's definitely
> not isolated to a single provider / range.
>
> There are articles from HostGator, CloudFlare, Techcrunch and several
> others.
>
> http://blog.hostgator.com/2013/04/11/global-wordpress-brute-force-flood/
> http://blog.cloudflare.com/patching-the-internet-fixing-the-wordpress-br
> http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/12/hackers-point-large-botnet-at-wordpress-sites-to-steal-admin-passwords-and-gain-server-access/
>
>
> On 04/12/2013 11:02 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote:
>>
>> FYI.  Am I the only person just hearing about this?
>>
>> ----- Forwarded Message -----
>>>
>>> From: "PRIVACY Forum mailing list" <privacy at vortex.com>
>>> Huge attack on WordPress sites could spawn never-before-seen super
>>> botnet
>>>
>>> http://j.mp/ZRZksL (ars technica)
>>>
>>> "The unknown people behind the highly distributed attack are using
>>> more
>>> than 90,000 IP addresses to brute-force crack administrative
>>> credentials of vulnerable WordPress systems, researchers from at least
>>> three Web hosting services reported. At least one company warned that
>>> the attackers may be in the process of building a "botnet" of infected
>>> computers that's vastly stronger and more destructive than those
>>> available today. That's because the servers have bandwidth connections
>>> that that are typically tens, hundreds, or even thousands of times
>>> faster than botnets made of infected machines in homes and small
>>> businesses."
>>>
>>> - - -
>>>
>>> Up in the Net! It's a bug! It's a phish! It's SUPER-botnet!
>>>
>>> --Lauren--
>>> Lauren Weinstein (lauren at vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
>>> Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility:
>>> http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info
>>> Founder:
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>>> http://www.gctip.org
>>> Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
>>> Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
>>> Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren / Twitter:
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>>>
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>
>
>

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