[Honeypot Alert] Mass Joomla Component LFI Attacks Identified

Joomla Component LFI Vulnerabilities

Joomla has hundreds of Controller components. Check out the Joomla Extension site for examples. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these components have LFI vulnerabilities. The vulnerability details are pretty much the same -

• The vulnerable page is "index.php".
• The "option" parameter is set to "com_xxxxxx" where xxxx is the vulnerable component name.
• Input passed via the "controller" parameter is not properly verified before being used to include files.
• By appending URL-encoded NULL bytes, an attacker can specify any arbitrary local file.

Here is an example OSVDB Search Query for a listing of these vulnerabiities.

Honeypot Attack Probes Identified

Our daily honeypot analysis has identified a mass scanning campaign aimed at various Joomla Component Local File Inclusion (LFI) Vulnerabilities. Here are a few example attacks taken from today's honeypot logs:

109.75.169.20 - - [17/Nov/2011:17:48:15 +0900] "GET /index.php?option=com_bca-rss-syndicator&controller=../../../../../../../../../../../../../../../../../../../../../../../..//proc/self/environ%0000 HTTP/1.1" 404 224174.122.220.10 - - [17/Nov/2011:00:21:32 +0100] "GET /index.php?option=com_ckforms&controller=../../../../../../../../../../../../..//proc/self/environ%0000 HTTP/1.1" 404 304 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.01; Windows CE; PPC; 240x320)"72.47.211.229 - - [17/Nov/2011:10:14:27 +0900] "GET /index.php?option=com_cvmaker&controller=../../../../../../../../../../../../..//proc/self/environ%0000 HTTP/1.1" 404 216180.235.131.131 - - [17/Nov/2011:01:34:54 +0900] "GET /index.php?option=com_datafeeds&controller=../../../../../../../../../../../../..//proc/self/environ%0000 HTTP/1.1" 404 222

Notice that various components are targeted in the "option" parameter and that the a directory traversal attack is used in the "controller" parameter. The LFI data is attempting to enumerate the OS shell environment data.

Attack Statistics

• Number of attacks seen: 1538
• Number of unique attack sources: 45

Top 25 Joomla Component LFI Attacker Sources

Joomla Components Targeted

Here is a listing of the various Joomla components that were targeted in today's attacks:

com_bca-rss-syndicatorcom_ccnewslettercom_ckformscom_cvmakercom_datafeedscom_dioneformwizardcom_dwgraphscom_fabrikcom_gadgetfactorycom_ganalyticscom_gcalendarcom_hsconfigcom_if_surfalertcom_janewscom_jfeedbackcom_joomlapicasa2com_joomlaupdatercom_joommailcom_jshoppingcom_juliaportfoliocom_jvehiclescom_jwhmcscom_linkrcom_mediqnacom_mmsblogcom_mscommentcom_mtfireeaglecom_ninjarsssyndicatorcom_onlineexamcom_orgchartcom_pcchesscom_propertiescom_rokdownloadscom_rpxcom_s5clanrostercom_sbsfilecom_sectionexcom_shoutboxcom_simpledownloadcom_smestoragecom_spsnewslettercom_svmapcom_sweetykeepercom_userstatuscom_webeecommentcom_weberpcustomercom_zimbcomment

Recommendations

If you are running Joomla applications, you should ensure that you are keeping up-to-date on patches and updates.

OWASP Joomla Vulnerability Scanner

OWASP has an open source Joomla Vulnerability Scanner Project that you should check out and run against your site.

OWASP ModSecurity Core Rule Set

The OWASP ModSecurity CRS includes generic directory traversal attack detections which should provide base level protections.

Commercial ModSecurity Rules From Trustwave

We have numerous virtual patches for Joomla applications including these Controller parameter LFI attacks in our commercial rules feed.