Immediately upon return from 6 weeks leave, I was met with this
On Tue, 27 Aug 2013, Scott Dellinger wrote:
After we started getting alerted again about webdb server load, I have spent the last several hours looking into the recurring load issues on
webdb. The issues we’ve been having are due to attacks on several vulnerable PHP scripts on www.uvm.edu, inserting code into SQL statements that causes them to run for very long periods of time while holding open table locks. This is being done by calling the BENCHMARK() function, which makes code run repeatedly, in combination with SLEEP(). We have seen this type of attack before, but it’s been a while.
Specifically, http://www.uvm.edu/landscape and http://www.uvm.edu/~geomorph
Since they shared code base, I only had to fix the one and copy-paste to the other; nonetheless, some aspects were non-trivial. Ultimately, I prevailed.
Soon after, however, I heard
Looks like the back door you gave us for use by our publisher’s been shut both for them (and I just tried it, for me)
http://www.uvm.edu/~geomorph/gallery/xxxxxx.php
Funny, the landscape back door works fine…
In fact, I can’t get into the gallery at all from here in Paris unless I use any connect – otherwise I get a forbidden error.
The site was temporarily blocked from outside UVM access pending code fixes to address the DoS attacks. I unlocked it, and delivered a much enhanced “back door,” URL of which cannot be revealed.
But wait — there’s more
From: Steve Bergeron <steve.bergeron1@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Landscape Change Comment
Date: September 5, 2013 7:32:24 PM EDT
To: Paul Bierman <paul.bierman@uvm.edu>Paul,
I know that you personally may not be able to address this concern, but I am trying to upload a reshot image for LS69689. When I enter the photo number that I want to submit a reshoot for, I get this generic looking screen (the error on the top may have something to do with the problem)
Variety of Bugs introduced in latest bug fix (denial of service stuff). Squashed.
