A Large-Scale Phishing Campaign Targets WordPress WooCommerce Users
A recent phishing campaign has targeted WordPress WooCommerce users with a fake security alert, urging them to download a 'critical patch' that hides a backdoor. The Patchstack researchers uncovered this large-scale phishing campaign, which bears striking similarities to another campaign monitored in December 2023.
The emails sent to the victims claimed to warn of a supposed 'Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability', CVE-2023-45124, and urged users to install a fake patch allegedly from the WordPress team. The attackers warned that their websites were impacted by a nonexistent 'Unauthenticated Administrative Access' vulnerability.
Once the recipients clicked on the Download Patch button in the email, they were directed to a fake WooCommerce Marketplace page served through the malicious domain name woocommėrce[.]com (Note the ė in this domain, making it very similar to the official WooCommerce website).
After downloading the fake patch, users received a zip file named authbypass-update-31297-id.zip, which behaved like a regular plugin during installation. Once activated, the plugin silently leveraged legitimate WordPress hooks to mask its activities.
It immediately added a hidden WP Cron job running every minute to create a new, hidden administrator account and send the credentials to an attacker-controlled server. The plugin also contacted another server to download and install several obfuscated PHP web shells (such as P.A.S.-Fork, p0wny, and WSO) into the website's uploads folder.
These web shells gave attackers full control of the server, enabling activities like injecting ads, redirecting visitors, stealing billing data, launching DDoS attacks, or conducting ransomware operations. The plugin also hid itself and the rogue admin account to evade detection, mirroring tactics seen in previous "Fake CVE" phishing campaigns.
The researchers shared indicators of compromise for this campaign, including a new user account featuring a random-looking, 8-character username. Investigators also observed an unusual cronjob, such as one named mergeCreator655. In the file system, a suspicious folder named authbypass-update appears inside the wp-content/plugins/ directory, while another folder with a format like wp-cached-
Additionally, the compromised site generates outbound HTTP requests to attacker-controlled domains, including woocommerce-services[.]com, woocommerce-api[.]com, and woocommerce-help[.]com. As this phishing campaign is discovered and the community is made aware, it is likely for some or all of these indicators to change. New versions of this campaign are likely to appear as domains get flagged by hosts, registrars and security services.
Conclusion
As a result of this phishing campaign, it's essential for WordPress WooCommerce users to be vigilant and keep their software up-to-date. They should also regularly monitor their websites for suspicious activity and report any potential security issues to the relevant authorities. By staying informed and taking proactive measures, you can help prevent falling victim to these types of attacks.
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