Category: Uncategorized

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 72 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

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Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!

Big congratulations to Justyna Maculewicz from the lab who successfully defended her PhD thesis on rhythmic walking interaction with auditory and haptic feedback.

Rolf Nordahl has in corporation with SBi and Servodan A/S received funding for the project “Energy efficient camera-based lighting control”. Dannie Korsgaard has also been hired to work on the project.

The goal of the project is to develop a new advanced camera-based lighting control system able to adjust artificial lighting in relation to daylight, occupancy and lighting contrast in a room. It is the intention to reduce the energy consumption for lighting in buildings and at the same time improve the visual environment as the lighting control is based on a holistic evaluation of the lighting conditions.

The project is expected finalized during Q3 2014.

Stefania Serafin, Rolf Nordahl, Cumhur Erkut and Amalia De Goetzen will run a workshop entitled “ Sonic Interaction for virtual environments” during the IEEE Virtual Reality Conference on March 30th, 2014 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Sonic interaction design is defined as the study and exploitation of sound as one of the principal channels conveying information, meaning, and aesthetic/emotional qualities in interactive contexts. This field lies at the intersection of interaction design and sound and music computing.

In the virtual reality community, the focus on research in topics related to auditory feedback hasbeen rather limited when compared, for example, to the focus placed on visual feedback or even on haptic feedback. However, in communities such as the film community or the product sound design community it is well known that sound is a powerful way to communicate meaning and emotion to a scene or a product.

The main goal of this workshop is to increase among the virtual reality community the awareness of the importance of sonic elements when designing virtual environments. We will also discuss how research in other related fields such as film sound theory, product sound design, sound and music computing, game sound design and computer music can inform designers of virtual reality environments.

Moreover, the workshop will feature state of the art research on the field of sound for virtual environments.

We expect participants to submit a research paper (4 to 6 pages in using IEEE template) outlining their current research in the field of interactive sound for virtual environments.

Topics can include, but are not limited to:

1) Sound synthesis and design for virtual environments

2) Sound modelling and rendering for virtual environments

3) Sound spatialisation

4) Headphones and speakers reproduction

5) Gestural control of sound in virtual reality

6) Multisensory (audio-visual), (audio-haptics) interactions

7)Evaluation of user experience and sound quality

The proceedings of the workshop will be published by IEEE Press and the best contributions will be published in the special issue of a journal (to be finalised).