CryptoPHP

Posted: December 5, 2014

Threat Metric

The Threat Meter is a malware assessment that SpywareRemove.com's research team is able to give every identifiable malware threat. Our Threat Meter includes several criteria based off of specific malware threats to value their severity, reach and volume. The Threat Meter is able to give you a numerical breakdown of each threat's initial Threat Level, Detection Count, Volume Count, Trend Path and Percentage Impact. The overall ranking of each threat in the Threat Meter is a basic breakdown of how all threats are ranked within our own extensive malware database. The scoring for each specific malware threat can be easily compared to other emerging threats to draw a contrast in its particular severity. The Threat Meter is a useful tool in the endeavor of seeking a solution to remove a threat or pursue additional analytical research for all types of computer users.

The following fields listed on the Threat Meter containing a specific value, are explained in detail below:

Threat Level: The threat level scale goes from 1 to 10 where 10 is the highest level of severity and 1 is the lowest level of severity. Each specific level is relative to the threat's consistent assessed behaviors collected from SpyHunter's risk assessment model.

Detection Count: The collective number of confirmed and suspected cases of a particular malware threat. The detection count is calculated from infected PCs retrieved from diagnostic and scan log reports generated by SpyHunter.

Volume Count: Similar to the detection count, the Volume Count is specifically based on the number of confirmed and suspected threats infecting systems on a daily basis. High volume counts usually represent a popular threat but may or may not have infected a large number of systems. High detection count threats could lay dormant and have a low volume count. Criteria for Volume Count is relative to a daily detection count.

Trend Path: The Trend Path, utilizing an up arrow, down arrow or equal symbol, represents the level of recent movement of a particular threat. Up arrows represent an increase, down arrows represent a decline and the equal symbol represent no change to a threat's recent movement.

% Impact (Last 7 Days): This demonstrates a 7-day period change in the frequency of a malware threat infecting PCs. The percentage impact correlates directly to the current Trend Path to determine a rise or decline in the percentage.

Threat Level:	9/10
Infected PCs:	57

First Seen:	December 3, 2014
Last Seen:	May 4, 2019
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

CryptoPHP is a website plugin that may boost a website's search rankings artificially, thereby redirecting traffic to the compromised domains and enabling additional attacks. CryptoPHP's attacks, which have affected tens of thousands of unique IP addresses, are coordinated through C&C server commands. Both the infrastructure and CryptoPHP have seen recent updates to counter the defensive efforts of various PC security companies. Website administrators should attend to their site's security, and visitors to potential CryptoPHP-compromised sites should scan their PCs as a precaution against any automatically installed threat.

The Website Additions that only Search Engines See

CryptoPHP is a specialized threat plugin that may be distributed through compromised bundles for WordPress, Drupal and Joomla plugins and themes. CryptoPHP enables a website administration backdoor that, so far, third parties have used for illicit Search Engine Optimization (or Blackhat SEO) via injecting hyperlinks and keywords into the compromised sites. Because CryptoPHP only injects these extras when the site is analyzed by search engine analytical tools, the site's visitors will not see any visible signs of the danger.

These website-injecting attacks may be responsible for the distribution of other threats to the affected site's visitors. Examples of standard types of threats distributed in such campaigns may include banking Trojans like Trojan Zeus, other varieties of spyware, rootkits and similar, high-level threats. The automated download techniques preferred in these attacks may install threats automatically, assuming the presence of appropriate vulnerabilities (and a lack of defending security software).

Fox IT and other PC security institutions have taken steps to disrupt the DNS servers responsible for delivering instructions to CryptoPHP-compromised sites en masse. The United States has hosted the bulk of compromised domains, but other regions, such as Germany, also are affected in numbers ranging up to several thousand. Malware researchers saw the earliest versions of CryptoPHP in 2013, but CryptoPHP's campaign has seen fresh updates in 2014 that modify CryptoPHP's code and the associated domain infrastructure.

Putting Another Nail in SEO's Coffin

Both site administrators and Web surfers should each take specific precautions to continue to diminish the impact of CryptoPHP's ongoing campaign. Web surfers should block scripts and use other browser safety settings, particularly while browsing popular Content Management System websites like WordPress. Visitors to CryptoPHP-compromised sites always should scan their PCs with anti-malware solutions that can identify all threats that might have installed themselves through any software exploits.

Site administrators should use general Web maintenance protocols to detect potential CryptoPHP content, and also may avail themselves of freely distributed tools for identifying and deleting CryptoPHP specifically. Reinstalling your CMS from scratch also is heavily recommended by malware experts.

CryptoPHP isn't the first threat campaign of massive scale to abuse popular CMS platforms. Others, such as CryptoWall Ransomware and Fort Disco, also have used similar methods to enable their distribution to new victims. Even if you insist on using website software with a history of being exploited by third parties, you should be particularly cautious about where you acquire plugins and other add-ons for your site.

CryptoPHP

Threat Metric

The Website Additions that only Search Engines See

Putting Another Nail in SEO's Coffin

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