Slashdot Mirror
Breakdowns of Website Defacement by Platform
SkiifGeek writes "Zone-H have recently posted the statistical breakdown of the collected website defacements from the last few years. Surprisingly, in 2007 more Linux servers suffered a successful attack than all versions of Windows, combined. Similarly, more Apache installations were successfully attacked than all IIS versions combined. A day after posting this data, Zone-H have questioned the appropriateness of continuing to operate the archive. Despite the valuable information that can be gleaned from the service, it may soon be lost to the world. The natural successor to the now-defunct Alldas archive of defaced websites, Zone-H's archive maintains records of over 2.6 million defaced sites but may be shut down due to the continuous accusations of impropriety leveled against them any time they disclose and mirror a reported defacement."
Perhaps I missed it in TFA, but I saw no weighting for market share...
To pick an arbitrary statistic, in June 2007 Google reported Apache with a 66% market share and IIS with a 23% share (source). Given that the TFA lists "Attack against the administrator/user" as the most common attack method by a wide margin, and it seems to me that both Apache and IIS would be equally vulnerable to dumb administrators, wouldn't it make sense that the server with the larger market share would see more attacks?
I wouldn't be surprised if most Linux servers were defaced because of poor configurations, by home users. How many have the needed skill to do it well and really secure? How many home users wish to pay for IIS? Probably not many.
I guess IIS users on average are better at maintaining a server, as they probably are employed to do so.
It would be interesting to see a "demographic" breakdown on defaced servers, how many corporate Linux servers have been defaced. I believe the numbers will be different.
When the cure (more often than not these days) involves not having to disturb Apache at all (save for possibly changing something in httpd.conf), but instead fixing/dumping the bad script that let the baddies in, or patching PHP to plug the hole in it, then odds are good that it ain't Apache's fault, no?
To be fair, it would also be like blaming IIS for crap XML or ASP script, and MSFT would certainly waste no time in saying so.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
It is difficult to get accurate stats on this. Most will be stealing passwords, XSS, SQL injections, etc. So it does seem unfair and/or pointless to list via web server software or OS platform when that has little to do with it actually software you run it on. This is dodgy admin and slack devs are to blame not the technologies. For reference there have been no exploits at all in IIS 6.0, which comes with Windows 2003, whereas they have been a few with Apache.
Right, and left-hander live longer because statistically less left-hander die in a year than right-hander...
Hmm.. I though here in Slashdot many people deny that there are more succesful attacks in Windows just because it is the more popular platform. So now, in this case it **is** true that there are more succesful attacks on Apache just because it is the more populat server. Well, come on people...
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
...issue is more serious than it really needs to be?
Using regular backup methods and unauthorized access alarms (access alarms that are either verified or not as a matter of access notification loops).
So when a site gets hacked there is timely notification and backup usage.
In other words, should access happen but not getting verification within a set amount of time, reverts back to the pre-unverified access state of the site.
perhaps we can write this in PHP or python?
It still makes sense because the bulk of successful attacks on webservers result from attack methods that are not platform specific (Attack against the administrator/user (password stealing/sniffing), Shares misconfiguration, File Inclusion, SQL Injection etc).
The bulk of successful attacks against Windows, at least until very recently, have resulted from OS flaws.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
The article says that there were 1,485,280 Apache defacements and 815,119 IIS defacements. This implies a total of 2,300,399 samples, of which 64.6% were Linux. For comparison, other posters here have cited a Google survey reporting that 60% of webservers run Apache. That would seem to imply that, if you pick an IIS server at random or an Apache server at random, each is about as likely to be successfully attacked as the other.
Conclusion: IIS is just as good as Apache (contrary to popular Slashdot opinion). Of course, there's a flip side: Apache is just as good as IIS -- and it's free.
[Take all this modulo the fact that 370% of statistics are, if not made up on the spot, at least full of so much noise as to be meaningless. (Sometimes the Law of Large Numbers really does require large numbers!]
Harrumph.
A platform that is reasonably popular or otherwise interesting, and unsecure by design will be attacked. A more secure platform, which is also reasonably popular or otherwise interesting, will get attacked less.
Now, looking at the attack method table, it's obvious that in a case of defacement, the underlying web server platform is largely irrelevant. Web sites these days are complex arrays of application logic and databases. Rarely does a large web site consist of a web server dealing out static files. This change enables more dynamic content and easier content administration than before; then again, it adds several places where things can go wrong. What the Zone-H statistic really tells is that in a complex setup where there are components that can be compromised, the front end web server is usually running Apache. This tells nothing about its security, since it's usually not the front end web server software that is compromised.
Now, if the site included common web applications and application platforms in its reporting, the statistics would have much more value.
Usage: km/h for speed (kilometers per hour); kph for very slow impulses (kilopond hours).
I though here in Slashdot many people deny that there are more succesful attacks in Windows just because it is the more popular platform.
Of course windows gets attacked more because it is more popular. Nobody is denying that. However, it's not *JUST* because it is popular. It's the ratio of successful attacks to attempted attacks that people have a problem with. Windows has historically had a high ratio, meaning it was easy to crack into. Security holes used to remain open for months, or even years, because nobody but Microsoft has the means to fix them.
People also have a problem with the level of internal security once you crack into a windows box. Most of the time you immediately have full control of the machine. This is not the case with a UNIX based machine, where you typically only have access according to the server daemon which was cracked. Crack the FTP server and you only have access to what the FTP server has access to. Crack the web server and you are restricted to what the web server had access to.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
You know it comes across as interesting that whenever statistics come out that show that "Windows had more worms and viruses this year than Linux or MacOSX!" people use that as fuel to the fire to continually denounce Windows as a bad platform, Microsoft is the devil, Microsoft is evil, and any other number of ways of putting down Windows to make themselves feel better.
Then a statistic that comes out that shows Linux/Apache at the top of a security vulnerability list, and it's immediately "Oh it's the users! They don't know how to implement the platform properly! It's the scripting language they used! These numbers are meaningless without marketshare values!"
What we have as facts when it comes to security vulnerabilities:
1. When more people use it, there is a tendency to have more security vulnerabilities since more eyes are scrutinizing what is or isn't possible with that platform.
2. No matter which platform, it is only as secure as the person's implementation. If they don't know how to configure the system properly, it doesn't matter in the end.
So why all the hate against Microsoft for their products if these same problems affect all platforms?
Well,
/etc/passwd), while ASP is a pain in the back with these things ( include($variable) in ASP?? )
When you allow larger flexibility of doing things, you open doors.
PHP allows you to do ANYthing, including remote includes and relative and absolute includes (../whatever.php or
What I am trying to say, is that I am 90 percent sure, most of the defacements came from badly written code, such as index.php?news=page.php, and the include($_GET[page] kind of ignorant coding. Did I do that unthinkingly? OH yes. Everyone does, but then you learn.
Same with linux. Many people I know have servers with ssh and FTP enabled with super safe passes:
My favourite :
Company name: Heartless Buthcers LTD
Login: Heartless
pass: Butchers
Also I write a script in 5 minutes that logs into remote systems that do this and that with scripting, but I am in trouble doing anything on a remote access login to a gui, which is hardly scriptable (OK maybe that is my lack of knowledge of Wintel systems.
Just my 2 cents: with flexibility you open doors, and I think that is where it all boils down in this case.
I kinda suspect that Apache is losing market share (is that even an appropriate term for a free product? anyway...) because some other open-source products are starting to mature. For example, while I still run Apache on my personal projects, I've switched to using Lighttpd at work because I got fed up with continuous config file syntax changes on every new release of Apache 2, and I tend to update the work servers a lot more often than my home server. So, if IIS is holding steady, and some of the other open-source projects are maturing and taking some of Apache's share, then what do you expect will happen to the ratio of IIS vs. Apache servers on-line?
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
There is also the absolute lack of any security model in dozens if not hundreds of ser-built add-on moudles. Some of them are robust and well-tested (Webmin comes to mind). Others are hacked up pieces of debris written by new users who just learned to spell PHP.
They count things like weak passwords as a "hack".
This definitely has no relation to platform.
No sig today...
Why are you even bothering to argue this? The data doesn't tell us anything about Linux vs. Windows security. Just look at the top 5 methods by which the defacement happened:
1. Attack against the administrator/user (password stealing/sniffing): 141.660
2. Shares misconfiguration: 67.437
3. File Inclusion: 61.011
4. SQL Injection: 35.407
5. Access credentials through Man In the Middle attack: 28.046
(Those are the 2007 numbers)
That's a total of 333,561 total intrusions, and not one of those is due to inherent insecurity in anything. They are all configuration problems or bugs in the web apps themselves. And that's about 70% of the intrusions. Plus, many of the other attack vectors were of the same class. Only 13,405 were "web server intrusions" which is about 3%. If you take "RPC Server Intrusion" and "Other server intrusion" together as platform bugs (and I'm guessing most aren't), then you still only end up with another 3%.
Therefore, all this story tells us is that the software industry has to do a lot of work to protect users from themselves. It doesn't tell us that Apache or IIS or Windows or Linux is more secure than something else. It tells us users suck at security and programmers suck at making security simple.