[OpenStack-Infra] Wiki.o.o sustaining spam attack
Marton Kiss
marton.kiss at gmail.com
Sat Feb 27 12:39:52 UTC 2016
I made some investigation, and it seems to be that the spam pages are
created by accounts registered with password accounts, and the launchpad
openid auth is not affected at all.
So the spam script is creating accounts like this:
mysql> select * from user where user_name = 'CedricJamieson'\G;
*************************** 1. row ***************************
user_id: 7494
user_name: CedricJamieson
user_real_name: Cedric Jamieson
user_password:
:pbkdf2:sha256:10000:128:Mlo9tdaP+38niZrrEka7Ow==:jEVnrTclkwIpE1RzJywDlrSvkY5G3idYwOwYRkv5O0J/MSHjY+gdhtKmArQ53v6/w7o8E1wXb2QOR6HdL5TPfOI1bswS/fYXVVYjPjkEEdxqZ8q9L5p2f3N6rEYpMfT5tk+wDiy+j5aimrHrGSga44hndAHgX9/SnqUyxlutDVY=
user_newpassword:
user_newpass_time: NULL
user_email: balashkina.evdokiya at mail.ru
user_touched: 20160227052454
user_token: 7c39e44e849fb0e2bfae8790d6cc1379
user_email_authenticated: NULL
user_email_token: be963ac3bd43e70ff2f323063c61e320
user_email_token_expires: 20160305052441
user_registration: 20160227052441
user_editcount: 2
user_password_expires: NULL
The user_password field is always filled with a value, meanwhile this field
of non-infected user accounts with openid logins is empty.
We have 423 total accounts with passwords:
mysql> select count(*) from user where user_password != '';
+----------+
| count(*) |
+----------+
| 423 |
+----------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)
Mediawiki logs-in the newly created users without any preliminary email
confirmation, right after the registration. I disabled the standard user
login page, as described here:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Special_pages#Disabling_Special:UserLogin_and_Special:UserLogout_pages
And I made this patch to make it permanent:
https://review.openstack.org/285669 Disable standard password based auth
Just for the record, the last spam user account:
7536 | EarthaChester22
Marton
On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 8:31 AM Marton Kiss <marton.kiss at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I created the following patch, infra cores must approve that:
> https://review.openstack.org/285641 Add ssh key of JP Maxwell to wiki.o.o
>
> Marton
>
> On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 6:41 AM JP Maxwell <jp at tipit.net> wrote:
>
>> Marton has SSH access and applied a patch earlier today. It appears the
>> spam continues to flow:
>>
>>
>> https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/40_Thoughts_Of_Using_Open_Shelves_On_A_Kitchen
>>
>> Marton let me know if you can look at it some more or Infra if you want
>> to give me SSH I'll do so as well in the morning (public key attached).
>>
>>
>>
>> ssh-rsa
>> AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAQEA2b5I7Yff9FCrtRmSjpILUePi54Vbc8zqJTbzrIAQZGFLBi3xd2MLlhV5QVgpDBC9H3lGjbdnc81D3aFd3HwHT4dvvvyedT12PR3VDEpftdW84vw3jzdtALcayOQznjbGnScwvX5SgnRhNxuX9Rkh8qNvOsjYPUafRr9azkQoomJFkdNVI4Vb5DbLhTpt18FPeOf0UuqDt/J2tHI4SjZ3kjzr7Nbwpg8xGgANPNE0+2pJbwCA8YDt4g3bzfzvVafQs5o9Gfc9tudkR9ugQG1M+EWCgu42CleOwMTd/rYEB2fgNNPsZAWqwQfdPajVuk70EBKUEQSyoA09eEZX+xJN9Q==
>> jpmaxman at tipit.net
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> J.P. Maxwell / tipit.net <http://www.tipit.net>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 12:09 PM, Jimmy McArthur <jimmy at openstack.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Super thankful for all the folks that have jumped in over the last
>>> couple of days to help with the puppetization, etc... I just feel like
>>> we're taking a very wrong approach here.
>>>
>>> Paul Belanger wrote:
>>>
>>> Right, and I don't have an issue with that approach. Based on the work we did
>>> yesterday, anybody can do that via our workflow. Please submit a patch to
>>> puppet-mediawiki[1] and ping an infra-root in #openstack-infra IRC.
>>>
>>> What I'm proposing is the workflow is really meant for software, not for
>>> web applications. It's tedious and time consuming when what's needed here
>>> is a set of tests on the server. Submitting a patch, waiting for a +1, then
>>> getting on IRC to find someone with access (and time) to paste the logs is
>>> a pretty time consuming process for what should be a series of rapid-fire
>>> changes/fixes on the server. Especially when we're dealign with an active
>>> attack.
>>>
>>>
>>> We can then have somebody look at the logs. I think it is more about scheduling
>>> the task since more infra-root as travling back from the mid-cycle last night
>>> and today.
>>>
>>> Right, this is my point. This has been going on for 3 weeks (or more).
>>> Tom Fifeldt was asking for help without response. And here we are through
>>> another week and no closer to stemming the flow.
>>>
>>> I'm fully aware what I'm proposing goes against what Infra and the
>>> OpenStack workflow is all about, but I'd ask you all to look at this from a
>>> web development perspective instead of a software development perspective.
>>>
>>> Jimmy
>>>
>>>
>>> Last email from me, just on a plane. Will follow up when I land.
>>>
>>> [1] https://git.openstack.org/cgit/openstack-infra/puppet-mediawiki
>>>
>>> J.P. Maxwell | tipit.net [http://tipit.net] | fibercove.com
>>> [http://www.fibercove.com]
>>> On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 11:25 AM, Paul Belanger <pabelanger at redhat.com> <pabelanger at redhat.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 11:08:18AM -0600, Jimmy McArthur wrote:
>>>
>>> Given the state of the wiki a the moment, I think taking the quickest path
>>> to get it fixed would be prudent. Is there a way we can get JP root access
>>> to this server, even temporarily? We get 25% of our website traffic (2
>>> million visitors) to the wiki. I realize we're all after the same thing,
>>>
>>> but
>>>
>>> spammers are not going to hit the dev environment, so there's really no
>>>
>>> way
>>>
>>> to tell if teh problem is fixed without actually working directly on the
>>> production machine. This should be a 30 minute fix.
>>>
>>>
>>> I am still unclear what the 30min fix is. If really 30mins, then it
>>> shouldn't be
>>> hard to get the fix into our workflow. Could somebody please elaborate.
>>>
>>> If we are talking about deploying new versions of php or mediawiki manually,
>>> I
>>> not be in-favor of this. To me, while the attack sucks, we should be working
>>> on
>>> 2 fronts. Getting the help needed to mitigate the attack, then adding the
>>> changes into -infra workflow in parallel.
>>>
>>>
>>> I realize there is a lot of risk in giving ssh access to infra machines,
>>>
>>> but
>>>
>>> I think it's worth taking a look at either putting this machine in a place
>>> where a different level of admin could access it without giving away the
>>> keys to the entire OpenStack infrastructure or figuring out a way to set
>>>
>>> up
>>>
>>> credentials with varying levels of access.
>>>
>>>
>>> As a note, all the work I've been doing to help with the attack hasn't
>>> require
>>> SSH access for me to wiki.o.o. I did need infra-root help to expose our
>>> configuration safely. I'd rather take some time to see what the fixes are,
>>> having infra-root apply changes, then move them into puppet.
>>>
>>> It also has been discussed to simply disable write access to the wiki if we
>>> really want spamming to stop, obviously that will affect normal usage.
>>>
>>>
>>> Jimmy
>>>
>>> Paul Belanger wrote:
>>>
>>> On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 10:12:12AM -0600, JP Maxwell wrote:
>>>
>>> But if you wanted to upgrade everything, remove the mobile view
>>>
>>> extension,
>>>
>>> test in a dev/staging environment then deploy to production fingers
>>> crossed, I think that would be a valid approach as well.
>>>
>>>
>>> Current review up[1]. I'll launch a node tonight / tomorrow locally to
>>>
>>> see
>>> how
>>>
>>> puppet reacts. I suspect there will be some issues.
>>>
>>> If infra-roots are fine with this approach, we can use that box to test
>>>
>>> against.
>>>
>>> [1] https://review.openstack.org/#/c/285405/
>>>
>>> J.P. Maxwell | tipit.net | fibercove.com
>>> On Feb 26, 2016 10:08 AM, "JP Maxwell"<jp at tipit.net> <jp at tipit.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Plus one except in this case it is much easier to know if our efforts
>>>
>>> are
>>>
>>> working on production because the spam either stops or not.
>>>
>>> J.P. Maxwell | tipit.net | fibercove.com
>>> On Feb 26, 2016 9:48 AM, "Paul Belanger"<pabelanger at redhat.com> <pabelanger at redhat.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 09:18:00AM -0600, JP Maxwell wrote:
>>>
>>> I really think you might consider the option that there is a
>>>
>>> vulnerability
>>>
>>> in one of the extensions. If that is the case black listing IPs will
>>>
>>> be
>>>
>>> an
>>>
>>> ongoing wild goose chase.
>>>
>>> I think this would be easily proven or disproven by making the questy
>>> question impossible and see if the spam continues.
>>>
>>>
>>> We'll have to let an infra-root make that call. Since nobody would be
>>> able to
>>> use the wiki. Honestly, I'd rather spend the time standing up a mirror
>>>
>>> dev
>>>
>>> instance for us to work on, rather then production.
>>>
>>>
>>> J.P. Maxwell | tipit.net | fibercove.com
>>> On Feb 26, 2016 9:12 AM, "Paul Belanger"<pabelanger at redhat.com> <pabelanger at redhat.com>
>>>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 08:10:34PM -0800, Elizabeth K. Joseph wrote:
>>>
>>> On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 6:35 AM, Jeremy Stanley<fungi at yuggoth.org> <fungi at yuggoth.org>
>>>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 2016-02-25 02:46:13 -0600 (-0600), JP Maxwell wrote:
>>>
>>> Please be aware that you can now create accounts under the mobile
>>> view in the wiki native user table. I just created an account for
>>> JpMaxMan. Not sure if this matters but wanted to make sure you
>>> were aware.
>>>
>>> Oh, yes I think having a random garbage question/answer was in
>>>
>>> fact
>>>
>>> previously preventing account creation under the mobile view. We
>>> probably need a way to disable mobile view account creation as it
>>> bypasses OpenID authentication entirely.
>>>
>>> So that's what it was doing! We'll have to tackle the mobile view
>>>
>>> issue.
>>>
>>> Otherwise, quick update here:
>>>
>>> The captcha didn't appear to help stem the spam tide. We'll want to
>>> explore and start implementing some of the other solutions.
>>>
>>> I did some database poking around today and it does seem like all
>>>
>>> the
>>>
>>> users do have launchpad accounts and email addresses.
>>>
>>>
>>> So, I have a few hours before jumping on my plane and checked into
>>>
>>> this.
>>>
>>> We are
>>> using QuestyCaptcha which according to docs, should almost be
>>>
>>> impossible
>>>
>>> for
>>> spammers to by pass in an automated fashion. So, either our captcha
>>>
>>> is too
>>>
>>> easy, or we didn't set it up properly. I don't have SSH on wiki.o.o
>>>
>>> so
>>>
>>> others
>>> will have to check logs. I did test new pages and edits, and was
>>>
>>> promoted
>>>
>>> by
>>> captcha.
>>>
>>> As a next step, we might need to add additional apache2
>>>
>>> configuration
>>>
>>> to
>>>
>>> blacklist IPs. I am reading up on that now.
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Elizabeth Krumbach Joseph || Lyz || pleia2
>>>
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