A couple of months ago while I was watching KitBoga livestream he leaked the address of a fake tech-support website, made in WordPress.
The now dead site was “password protected” by the Hide My Site plugin.
Thus I decided to take a look at the source-code and try to own the shit out of the scammers.

Target aesthetics

A quick look through the code

I downloaded the source-code and I started analyzing index.php.
After about 5 minutes I get to the important part

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<?php
public function verify_login(){
    //a password was entered. first let's confirm the user isn't blocked...
    if ((isset($_POST['hwsp_motech']))) {
      $this->security->track_ip();
    }
    do_action( 'hidemy_beforeverify', $this ); #use this hook to add additional logic before verifying password entry
    //set access cookie if password is correct
    if ((isset($_POST['hwsp_motech']) AND ($this->security->needs_to_wait != 1)
AND ($_POST['hwsp_motech'] != "")) AND ((!empty($this->verifyother)) or
($_POST['hwsp_motech'] == get_option($this->plugin_slug.'_password'))  )) {
        setcookie($this->get_cookie2_name(), 1, $this->get_cookie_duration(), '/');
      $cookie_just_set = 1;
      $this->cookie_just_set = 1;
      $this->security->remove_ip();
      $this->attempt_status = "accepted";
      do_action( 'hidemy_loginattempted', $this ); #use this hook to take an action upon login acceptance...    
    }
    //if 
    //failother is true and default cookie was not just set, or no cookie is set AND cookie was not just set
    //AND there is no admin bypass and this is not hmspreview
      //then show the login page
    if(
      (isset($_GET['hmspreview']) && ($_GET['hmspreview'] == 'true'))
      or
      (
           (
           ( (!empty($this->failother)) AND ($this->failother) AND
(empty($cookie_just_set)) ) 
           or 
           ( (empty($_COOKIE[$this->get_cookie2_name()])) AND
(empty($cookie_just_set)) )
           )   
           AND
           ( ($this->no_admin_bypass()) AND (!(isset($_GET['hmspreview']) &&
($_GET['hmspreview'] == 'true'))) )  
           AND 
           (empty($this->open_to_public))
       )
      ) {
   ...

So basically if the cookie is set to something, you are authenticated.
Here’s the rest of the relevant code

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<?php
  public function get_cookie_name(){
    $name = $this->plugin_slug . "-access";
    return $name ;
  }
  public function get_cookie2_name(){
    $name = $this->get_cookie_name();
    $cookie2suffix = get_option($this->plugin_slug . '_cookie2suffix','');
    if(!empty($cookie2suffix)) { //cookie2suffix already set. add suffix from db
      $name .= $cookie2suffix;
    } else { //cookie2suffix not already set. generate new suffix, save to db, and add generated suffix
      $generated_suffix = rand(1,99999);
      update_option( $this->plugin_slug . '_cookie2suffix', $generated_suffix );
      $name .= $generated_suffix;
    }
    return $name;
  }

$this->plugin_slug is a costant and its value equals to hide_my_site.

As highlighted in the code, if this is the first time running the plugin, a number between 1 and 99999 is generated. That will be the number holding your whole security up in place.

Security considerations

There are a couple of problems with the approach of this plugin

  • It assumes that every request has a maximum of one of its special cookies set
  • Users provided with password are considered trusted
  • Changing the password won’t affect a smart user
  • Is the rand() function properly seeded?

Owning

It’s just a matter of writing a script to craft HTTP requests containing a lot cookies.

That’s what mine looks like in action

The script could be parallelized, I didn’t really bothered tho. If you really want to you can do it and send me a PR.

Patching it

Please don’t, just use an established authentication standard.

What about the scammers?

After gaining access to the WordPress blog, it was an awful template that pushed you to download their “security solutions” (such as TeamViewer and brothers), and a peculiar zip, which contained a vbs malware to install in the startup folder.

If installed, the malware would kill explorer on startup and give cancer, litterally telling you to call their call center to fix your computer.