Eighty Six - Cape Town Web Development & Consultancy

FIX: Iskorpitx Hack on Wordpress 2.9.2

Byron Rode — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:49:18 +0000

A friend of mine’s server was recently hacked by the Turkish Hacker iSKORPiTX. He has a number of Wordpress installs running on a number of domains and needed to get his sites back up and running. Here are the steps that I took to get one of his sites back to how it was before the hack – which I documented so that we had a guideline on what to do for each install.

Recovering from the iskorpitx Hack on Wordpress 2.9.2

This hack modifies a number of files in your wordpress installation as well as replacing the contents of any index.php files. Use the following steps to recover your installation.

Be sure to make a backup of the hacked install – as you can always revert to the hacked version if the steps below do not help you or cause any other damage.

Download the latest version of Wordpress (2.9.2) from http://www.wordpress.org and unzip (doesn’t matter where, you just need the original referenced files in the steps below).
Log in to your site and remove the index.html file in public_html (or your folder root).
Replace the index.php file contents with the index.php contents from the wordpress folder in Step 1.
Navigate to the wp-includes folder and replace the default-embeds.php, default-filters.php and default-widgets.php file from Step 1 in the same location (wordpress/wp-includes/default-*.php).
Navigate to the wp-admin folder and replace the index.php and index-extra.php files from Step 1 (wordpress/wp-admin/index.php and wordpress/wp-admin/index-extra.php).
Replace the missing files in the wp-admin/css folder (login.css and login-rtl.css).
Replace the missing images in the wp-admin/images folder – (the easiest thing to do is copy all the images from Step 1 directory, skipping the duplicates and replacing the 3 missing images).
Remove the in.txt file from wp-admin/maint folder.
Navigate to the wp-content folder.
Replace the index.php file with the index.php file (wordpress/wp-content/index.php) – this is an empty file just to prevent access to the folders.
Repeat Step 10, replacing the wp-content/themes/index.php and wp-content/plugins/index.php files (these are also empty files).
Replace the index.php file in your active theme folder with the index.php file from your theme (DO NOT USE the Step 1 default/classic index.php file unless you have not modified your themes index.php file or are using the default theme).
Navigate every other folder and remove any references to in.txt

Update: Also make sure to disable and update/replace all your plugins as any plugins that have an index.php file will also be hacked.

Eighty Six, or myself cannot be held responsible for any adverse effects that the above fix may cause – these steps were taken and worked on his Wordpress 2.9.2 installs on his server. Your server may be setup differently, but use the following as a guideline. If you have any other files that you notice need fixing, please let me know and I will update the steps above.

Good luck.

G-Connect ADSL

Byron Rode — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:06:32 +0000

Here is a scenario. It’s a 3rd of the way through the month, and you have used up your 3GB cap because you were without DSL for a month and needed to do A LOT of catching up. You only got 3GB because for 2 people in a small home office, that should be enough. You don’t have a Credit Card because you think they are evil, but you need to top-up your internet cap, and for this you need a Credit Card. For you overseas folks that have uncapped broadband, this is something you will not have heard of.

Without the Credit Card, topping up with your current ISP is not as easy as it sounds, it requires fax machines, deposit slips and a trip to the bank. So you investigate other ISP’s – there are a few but you don’t want another month-month contract, you need something quick, something that is relatively cheap, and something you can throw away when you are done – but there is a catch, it must be reliable. After you have investigated the different offerings, you are left with 2 viable options.

Lets break it down. <– See what I did there Etienne :)

Option 1’s minimum offering is a 5Gb package, that lasts for 30 days on an Unshaped Line @ R30/Gb or R150.00. This is provided by the guys at G-Connect.

Option 2 offers a prepaid per gig service @ R39/Gb – which gives you 5Gb on a Semi-Shaped Line for a total of R195.00 – This is provided by the guys at AfriHost.

I posted the question on Twitter, asking if anybody had any bias towards either, and got some mixed responses. Option 1 is a new service, and as South African’s are, we are a bit unsure of new services, as we have been let down before.

Anyway, to cut a long story extremely short, after weighing the options, I decided to go with Option 1 from G-Connect. The biggest seller for me were the following 2 things. The cost and the speed. While R45.00 is not a huge difference, choosing between a shaped/unshaped line was.

After a few teething issues getting connected, I must admit, I am very impressed. Signing up was easy to do. – I had already done it a few months ago for my old apartment – but in terms of getting going, the signup process is easy.

Paying for the service was much better than I had expected. Because I don’t have a Credit Card, I needed another alternative. I bank with both FNB and Standard Bank, and they offer an EFT option for both as well as ABSA. After purchasing the R150 Voucher, I was sent an email with their banking details for the financial institution I chose. I made the deposit, emailed the EFT Proof of Payment all from within my Internet Banking profile and got back to work.

To be honest, I was expecting a delay of at least 1 day, and they did warn me (via the disclaimer) that it could take 1 – 3 days to be processed. Fair game. But no. Within minutes of receiving the first email, another 2 had arrived. One to tell me the payment was successful, and one to give me my 5Gb Voucher number.

Now that is good service. If other ISP’s could learn from this, we would have a lot less pissed off internet users in South Africa.

Connecting up was not as easy at first, but that was due to my error more than anything else. I will be writing a follow up post on how to connect to GConnect’s ADSL service on OS X via PPPoE later today or tomorrow so that user’s do not have to go through the same issues that I went through getting started. While I dislike the “hotspot” type authentication that is currently necessary to keep the connection alive, I will give GConnect a 9.5 out of 10.

The connection speed is great, my iPhone update downloaded at a steady 3Mbits/second and took about 5 mins to download 220mb and the line is extremely stable. I will definitely use this as a Top Up service in the future.

Please Note: This post is not a paid post, and we are in no way affiliated with GConnect. GConnect did not request this post or any feedback of their service. This post was written without gain to serve as information for other users.

Ripped… Or Not!

Byron Rode — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:43:57 +0000

A few weeks ago, just shortly after launching my company, it came to be, that the name I was using for the company, was very similar, wait – lets rephrase – was exactly the same as a large toy company. You can read more about that here. But, to cut a long story short.

After waiting a few weeks, I heard nothing back from the company, and after many more sleepless nights, wondering if one day I would need to rebrand and go through the whole launch process again, update all my financials, spend more money etc, I decided – rather let me do it now, while everything was still fresh. So with sadness, I am saying Goodbye Kid Robot, Hello Eighty Six.

I am not going to go into too much detail about the name etc, but I will say one thing. Before opening your “virtual doors”, make sure you have done enough investigation to make sure something similar doesn’t exist.

Hope you all have a great weekend, and seasons greetings to you all.

Byron

Legality…

Byron Rode — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 06:54:14 +0000

Last week, shortly after the website launch, it was brought to my attention that the name and logo of my company were very similar to that of a large toy company. The funny thing about it all is that when I first was given this nickname and registered the domain, I was sent a link to the very same toy company as a joke, a play on being a kid, toys, etc.
But it was one of those days where you clicked on the link, looked with mild interest and closed the browser window and forgot about it. The same happened with the domain – it was an impulse purchase and I had expected to use the domain for web related blogging etc, but I never got around to it and it stayed in my domain control panel as a parked page.

Fast forward to a year later and a lot changed. My direction and decisions to work for myself and have my own company again sparked the revival of the domain. After trading as myself for a while I decided it would be fitting to use the domain and subsequent name as my company’s front door and identity.

Enter present day, after looking at the toy company’s website and logo, I did notice a lot of similarities. Now before I go on, and I know that this is mentioned often, but this was 100% purely coincidental and unintentional. I had never thought about the toy company email and link again, and it was only after being told about the “blatant” similarities that I then had a look at the website.

Considering all the above, the very first thing I did was contact the toy company, asking them about the legalities of their registered name, the jurisdiction of said registration, what legal “side-effects” there were etc. I also made mention that I would gladly rebrand the logo etc, so that there were less similarities and also asked whether the vast difference in our products/services would be of any consequence.

I asked them to also please let me know in due time of course, so that I could plan against the rebrand, work out the costing, and plan ahead, because lets face it, nobody wants to have established their brand, paid thousands for marketing collateral and then get a lawyers letter claiming the name, domain and whatever else. It’s just not cricket.

But, it has been almost 2 weeks and I am yet to hear from them.

So my question is the same as I asked previously on twitter, what do you think should be done? Should we just rebrand the identity and logo and keep on trucking as kid robots, or do we take the name, put it back in the hat, and pull out another name, rebrand, ditch all previous marketing collateral and start from scratch. However, time is running very short. I have to update all my previous clients (again), ensure that there is no financial (tax etc) uphill and also keep working on the projects that are streaming in, not to mention that name changing is not good for the stability of ones image.

As much as I love the name, and it’s roots – I don’t have time for any of this, or the money to throw at a lawyer to ask the same questions, so what are your thoughts. There might even be something in store for you :)

Hello world!

Byron Rode — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 20:21:48 +0000

When I started out this blog post, the title of the “original” post, automatically created by Wordpress seemed perfectly fitting, seeing as this is our introductory post, and the first blog post from Kid Robot’s new website, and my new company.

The website is almost 100% complete, and the only things left to add are the portfolio items that are currently missing. But I am still trying to figure out the best way to handle the items – maybe individual pages with detailed information, but I am not sure. What do you think? Also before I go on, this is an open call to the public to please let me know if anything is broken on the website or if you feel there is something missing.

Now I say new company, because the name is new, and the company is “new”, but for those of you who do not know me, I am by no means new to the industry. I have been working for more than 8 years in the internet sector, but after many different paths taken and opportunities jumped upon, I have found that working for myself is what I do best, and most enjoy.

More about the company and me can be found in the about section of the website, so I am not going to dabble on here too much about that. This blog post serves more than one purpose. Not only does it introduce the company and fill the initial “first blog” gap, but it is also a means for me to push an “opening special” if you will. Now while this special is running as we speak, technically we are not open to take new projects until the middle of January, beginning of February. Then why run a special now you ask? Well considering that Christmas season is upon us, and bonuses are due to those in the working world, not to mention that I would love the work for the new year, I thought it would be best that I get this going now. Anyway, I digress.

The special
15% discount on any of our services – except consulting to new customers throughout December and January.

How this is appealing to you, the reader, however is where the best part comes in. For every client that signs up for this special, received from any of you out there, we will give your R500, in cash money, for you to use on anything. Thats right, you heard correctly. We will give anyone who refers us a new client, who signs up for work during December and January, R500.

As with any giveaway, there is some fine print however. The referred client will need to have signed up for work, and have at least paid the required deposit in order for the R500 “referral fee” to be valid. If you need to find out more about the finer print, pop us a mail, or contact us via our contact form.

So how does it work?
Its really simple – all you need to do is ask that the person signing up for any of our services, quote the following code “robotxmas” and make sure they give us either a contact number or email address for you as well, so that we can contact you to deliver this cash money.

Its really that simple. Spread the love, tell your friends and family, and hey, even your enemies will do, then quote the code above, and if they sign up with us, you get R500.

What are you waiting for. Go.