Gootloader infection cleaned up
Dear blog owner and visitors,
This blog had been infected to serve up Gootloader malware to Google search victims, via a common tactic known as SEO (Search Engine Optimization) poisioning. Your blog was serving up 299 malicious pages. Your blogged served up malware to 0 visitors.
I tried my best to clean up the infection, but I would do the following:
- Upgrade WordPress to the latest version (one way the attackers might have gained access to your server)
- Upgrade all WordPress themes to the latest versions (another way the attackers might have gained access to your server)
- Upgrade all WordPress plugins (another way the attackers might have gained access to your server), and remove any unnecessary plugins.
- Verify all users are valid (in case the attackers left a backup account, to get back in)
- Change all passwords (for WordPress accounts, FTP, SSH, database, etc.) and keys. This is probably how the attackers got in, as they are known to brute force weak passwords
- Run antivirus scans on your server
- Block these IPs (5.8.18.7 and 89.238.176.151), either in your firewall, .htaccess file, or in your /etc/hosts file, as these are the attackers command and control servers, which send malicious commands for your blog to execute
- Check cronjobs (both server and WordPress), aka scheduled tasks. This is a common method that an attacker will use to get back in. If you are not sure, what this is, Google it
- Consider wiping the server completly, as you do not know how deep the infection is. If you decide not to, I recommend installing some security plugins for WordPress, to try and scan for any remaining malicious files. Integrity Checker, WordPress Core Integrity Checker, Sucuri Security,
and Wordfence Security, all do some level of detection, but not 100% guaranteed - Go through the process for Google to recrawl your site, to remove the malcious links (to see what malicious pages there were, Go to Google and search site:your_site.com agreement)
- Check subdomains, to see if they were infected as well
- Check file permissions
Gootloader (previously Gootkit) malware has been around since 2014, and is used to initally infect a system, and then sell that access off to other attackers, who then usually deploy additional malware, to include ransomware and banking trojans. By cleaning up your blog, it will make a dent in how they infect victims. PLEASE try to keep it up-to-date and secure, so this does not happen again.
Sincerly,
The Internet Janitor
Below are some links to research/further explaination on Gootloader:
https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2021/03/01/gootloader-expands-its-payload-delivery-options/
https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2021/08/12/gootloaders-mothership-controls-malicious-content/
https://www.richinfante.com/2020/04/12/reverse-engineering-dolly-wordpress-malware
https://blog.sucuri.net/2018/12/clever-seo-spam-injection.html
Nicole & Jayesh’s New Year’s Eve Wedding
Nicole and Jayesh wanted their wedding to be a big party, and what better way to accomplish that than getting married on New Year’s Eve. I’ve had the opportunity to shoot this vibrant couple in the past, and I was honoured when they wanted me to be part of their wedding. It also gave me the opportunity to work with a great photographer, Jen McDougal for parts of the day. My role was to spend the morning with Jayesh and his groomsmen and travel with them to the ceremony at Boomtown in the Western Development Museum in Saskatoon. After capturing the ceremony I would focus on getting candid shots throughout the rest of the festivities.
Dinner and the reception was at the awesome new German Concordia Club. This was the perfect venue for what they had planned – a grand party for hundreds of guests, featuring a world class meal, ice sculptures on every table, incredible decorations, and four talented DJs. If you’ve ever met Nicole and Jayesh, you know how they deliver on parties.
Here’s some of my favourite photos from the day.
Lindsey & Scott Engaged in Saskatoon
Lindsey and Scott are getting married this summer in Saskatoon. Lindsey liked the idea of a winter wedding, but wasn’t able to make it work out. She figured that the next best thing was to have their engagement photos done in the winter. Even though snow was in limited quantity this year, we were able to get a day where there was some white stuff on the ground. We spent some time together late one afternoon by the river in downtown Saskatoon.
Here are some of my favourite photographs from the day.
Jenna & Cameron’s Elk Ridge Winter Wedding
Jenna and Cam got married this January at the Elk Ridge Resort near the Waskesiu National Park. They wanted a nice winter wedding, and I was a little bit nervous since there was no snow in Saskatoon at that time. On the final stretch of my 2 1/2 hour drive to the resort, a snow storm seemed to emerge out of nowhere. Visibility was down to almost zero and I puttered along at 30km hour until I arrived at the northern Saskatchewan getaway. My worries of no snow for a winter wedding were quickly snuffed out as I drove through the resort.
I spent the wedding day going back and forth between Jenna and her attendants, and Cam and his groomsmen as they got ready for the day. The ceremony was short and sweet and with another gorgeous winter day, we spent the afternoon outside to make some photographs. We made our way back to the resort as the sun dipped below the horizon for the remainder of the celebration.
Here are some of my favourite photographs from the day.
Sharlene & Kelly’s Winter Wedding in Saskatoon
Sharlene and Kelly were married a few days after Christmas in Saskatoon. Keeping with the unprecedented mild winter temperatures we had been seeing, their wedding day was no different. To go along with the awesome weather was a fantastic couple and their wedding party. Even though we had very little time between the ceremony and the reception for making photographs, everyone involved just went with the flow and had a great time. They made my job pretty easy.
The dinner and reception was at Boomtown in the Western Development Museum. The evening was filled with hilarious, as well as emotional toasts to the couple from their family and close friends. I always appreciate getting to see this window into the life of a couple that I’ve gotten to know over the last year or so.
Here are some of my favourite shots from the day.
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