CKAN site hacked

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Elaine taylor-whilde

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Jan 6, 2015, 1:06:00 PM1/6/15
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Hello,

We've looked at a CKAN test site we have, and have noticed a hacking group called 'Slayers Hack Team' have apparently hacked the site.

Doing a quick google search shows that a number of sites have been hacked by them also including data.parliament.uk 

Having looked at the CKAN website there is nothing about any mass hack by this group. 

Has anyone else fallen foul of them? If so, what did you do to resolve this issue?

Thanks


Patrick West

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Jan 6, 2015, 1:23:57 PM1/6/15
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We’re having that same issue on our Deep Carbon Observatory CKAN install in production. Noticed it early last week. Just one dataset and is owned by Joe Bloggs.

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Matthew Fullerton

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Jan 6, 2015, 1:41:52 PM1/6/15
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Dear Elaine, Patrick,

This issue was floated on the ckan-dev list a few days ago. Below are
the responses. The problem is almost certainly one of spam than
hacking.

Best,
Matt

On 1 January 2015 at 02:45, Alex (Maxious) Sadleir <max...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This has been covered in the IRC channel
> https://botbot.me/freenode/ckan/2014-12-29/?msg=28462432&page=1
>
> Essentially the default permissions allow people to register and
> create groups/datasets and if you don't change these you are likely to
> get spam.
>
> This spam in particular is rather scary because it says "HACKED" but
> really, it is using functionality that is working correctly to upload
> incorrect data - the access control mechanism is working but not
> configured to prevent spam.
>
> There is an issue to review these default permissions
> https://github.com/ckan/ckan/issues/2164

On 31 December 2014 at 19:25, Ross Jones <ro...@servercode.co.uk> wrote:
> Hi Matthew
>
> I suspect this is a problem with setup, where any user who registers can
> create an organisation and add datasets to it. In particular I would guess
> that all of those instances that appear to have been ‘hacked’ have the
> settings described at
> http://docs.ckan.org/en/latest/maintaining/configuration.html?highlight=config#authorization-settings
> set incorrectly - although obviously I can’t confirm it from here.
>
> There’s more information on a ticket created recently -
> https://github.com/ckan/ckan/issues/2164 - which is to change the defaults
> to ensure newly installed CKANs are locked down by default.
>
> Ross
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ckan-global-user-group/C4AE6A50-4295-4192-A0C6-532146D270C6%40rpi.edu.

Elaine taylor-whilde

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Jan 6, 2015, 1:52:37 PM1/6/15
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Thanks Both !

Adam McGreggor

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Jan 6, 2015, 2:22:37 PM1/6/15
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On 6 Jan 2015, at 18:41, Matthew Fullerton <matt.fu...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Elaine, Patrick,
>
> This issue was floated on the ckan-dev list a few days ago. Below are
> the responses. The problem is almost certainly one of spam than
> hacking.

The mails can be seen at:

https://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/ckan-dev/2014-December/008501.html
and
https://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/ckan-dev/2015-January/008503.html

(using the ‘next in thread’ option).


A
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Patrick West

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Jan 8, 2015, 2:45:31 PM1/8/15
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We already had ckan.auth.anon_create_dataset = False

So wondering how this was able to happen with that setting?

If this is set to False then the only way that dataset could have been added would have been from a logged-in user, correct?

Patrick

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Augusto Herrmann

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Jan 9, 2015, 6:13:16 AM1/9/15
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Yes. However, new user registrations are currently enabled by default. If you don't take steps to disable it in your site, the spammers do just that - register a new user just so they can post their spam. I've seen these spammers post in many CKAN sites since late 2014.

Augusto

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Vanya Yani

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Jan 19, 2015, 11:47:34 AM1/19/15
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> The problem is almost certainly one of spam than 
hacking. 

Well, somehow the user "Cyberizm" has admin permissions.
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Ross Jones

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Jan 19, 2015, 12:01:56 PM1/19/15
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Hi Vanya,

If your server is set up to allow users to create organisations, then
they'll get admin permissions for that organization. This is not the
same as sysadmin permissions. We would expect a user creating an
organization to be allowed to administer that organization.


Ross.


Vanya Yani wrote:
> > The problem is almost certainly one of spam than
> hacking.
>
> Well, somehow the user "Cyberizm" has admin permissions.
>
> On Tuesday, 6 January 2015 20:41:52 UTC+2, Matthew Fullerton wrote:
>
> Dear Elaine, Patrick,
>
> This issue was floated on the ckan-dev list a few days ago. Below are
> the responses. The problem is almost certainly one of spam than
> hacking.
>
> Best,
> Matt
>
> On 1 January 2015 at 02:45, Alex (Maxious) Sadleir <max...@gmail.com
> <javascript:>> wrote:
> >
> > This has been covered in the IRC channel
> > https://botbot.me/freenode/ckan/2014-12-29/?msg=28462432&page=1
> <https://botbot.me/freenode/ckan/2014-12-29/?msg=28462432&page=1>
> >
> > Essentially the default permissions allow people to register and
> > create groups/datasets and if you don't change these you are
> likely to
> > get spam.
> >
> > This spam in particular is rather scary because it says "HACKED" but
> > really, it is using functionality that is working correctly to
> upload
> > incorrect data - the access control mechanism is working but not
> > configured to prevent spam.
> >
> > There is an issue to review these default permissions
> > https://github.com/ckan/ckan/issues/2164
> <https://github.com/ckan/ckan/issues/2164>
>
> On 31 December 2014 at 19:25, Ross Jones <ro...@servercode.co.uk
> <javascript:>> wrote:
> > Hi Matthew
> >
> > I suspect this is a problem with setup, where any user who
> registers can
> > create an organisation and add datasets to it. In particular I
> would guess
> > that all of those instances that appear to have been ‘hacked’
> have the
> > settings described at
> >
> http://docs.ckan.org/en/latest/maintaining/configuration.html?highlight=config#authorization-settings
> <http://docs.ckan.org/en/latest/maintaining/configuration.html?highlight=config#authorization-settings>
>
> > set incorrectly - although obviously I can’t confirm it from here.
> >
> > There’s more information on a ticket created recently -
> > https://github.com/ckan/ckan/issues/2164
> <https://github.com/ckan/ckan/issues/2164> - which is to change the
> defaults
> > to ensure newly installed CKANs are locked down by default.
> >
> > Ross
>
> On 6 January 2015 at 19:23, Patrick West <we...@rpi.edu
> <javascript:>> wrote:
> > We’re having that same issue on our Deep Carbon Observatory CKAN
> install in
> > production. Noticed it early last week. Just one dataset and is
> owned by Joe
> > Bloggs.
> >
> > On Jan 6, 2015, at 11:06 AM, Elaine taylor-whilde
> <cicde...@gmail.com <javascript:>>
> > wrote:
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > We've looked at a CKAN test site we have, and have noticed a
> hacking group
> > called 'Slayers Hack Team' have apparently hacked the site.
> >
> > Doing a quick google search shows that a number of sites have
> been hacked by
> > them also including data.parliament.uk <http://data.parliament.uk>
> >
> > Having looked at the CKAN website there is nothing about any mass
> hack by
> > this group.
> >
> > Has anyone else fallen foul of them? If so, what did you do to
> resolve this
> > issue?
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the
> Google Groups
> > "CKAN Global User Group" group.
> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
> send an
> > email to ckan-global-user-...@googlegroups.com
> <javascript:>.
> > To post to this group, send email to
> > ckan-global...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>.
> <http://groups.google.com/group/ckan-global-user-group>.
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ckan-global-user-group/5f6b90f2-4d44-46cd-99ec-ccae084fb55c%40googlegroups.com>.
>
> > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout
> <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>.
> >
> >
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the
> Google Groups
> > "CKAN Global User Group" group.
> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
> send an
> > email to ckan-global-user-...@googlegroups.com
> <javascript:>.
> > To post to this group, send email to
> > ckan-global...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>.
> <http://groups.google.com/group/ckan-global-user-group>.
> > To view this discussion on the web, visit
> >
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ckan-global-user-group/C4AE6A50-4295-4192-A0C6-532146D270C6%40rpi.edu
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ckan-global-user-group/C4AE6A50-4295-4192-A0C6-532146D270C6%40rpi.edu>.
>
> >
> > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout
> <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>.
>
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