Getting malicious site warning from grandcanyonskywalk.com

I just sent the following message to the contact addy of the Grand Canyon Skywalk. Does anyone else get the warning I mention?

When I visit any page at hxxp://www.grandcanyonskywalk.com, my anti-virus program, Avast, gives me a pop-up with the following warning

Network Shield: Blocked access to malicious site 78.110.175.21:1421/cp/?O

The line appears 10 times in the pop-up with the 4 digit number near the end being one number higher for each line. If the number near the end of the last line is 1430, for example, the number in the first line in the next pop-up when I go to another page is 1431.

Apparently, there is something really wrong with your site.

The site ‘is’ infected, there is a block of obfuscated code at the bottom of the page, just before the closing Body tag. It is trying to look like a counter but there is no need for a counter to hide what it is doing in this way.

This script is different to all the other scripts on the page mostly on a single very long line (I have broken that down to make it easier to see in my image), so I believe that the site has been hacked. I would guess that this code has been inserted into most pages on the site certainly the ones you tried, so their webmaster has some work on their hands.

The 4 digit number at the end of the IP after the : (colon) is the port number it is trying to use

I am curious david… how do u know this?? do u use some kind of special tool or something to check out these sites??

If soo please spread the secret

Strange, we’re catching this as Redirector-D, you should have it caught by the webshield. Is your avast up2date, with Webshield turned on?

Sorry, no special tool, just a working knowledge of how avast works in creating temporary files to scan content (for the alert) and using a text editor to view that temporary file. I won’t go into any more detail as a) I don’t know your experience level or what back-up and recovery strategy you have in place, should it all go pear shaped and b) this is a public forum so other ‘curious’ users might well try the same and get into trouble.

Firefox, running under DropMyRights, with NoScript, the network shield, web shield and a good firewall are the start point but most importantly a means of recovering for any possible disaster (drive imaging software), so as you can see this isn’t just for the ‘curious’ (it killed the cat) but for those prepared for any eventuality and they would from the above general information be able to work out how to do it.

@ kubecj
My detection on testing was on the web shield, redirector-d, see image

Hi DavidR,

I checked it here:
Exploit Prevention Lab LinkScanner

There was 1 threat found.
Stop DANGEROUS: LinkScanner Online has found
[link to known exploit site (type 610)]
Detail: Exploit: Link To Known Exploit Site

This page contains a link to a known exploit site. This link may or may not be active. It may or may not require you to click it to be infected. Some pages with such links automatically download the malicious code without any action on your part. Because of this we automatically block access to such pages.
Risk Category: Exploit
Description: XPL’s Intelligence Network has detected an exploit. An exploit is a piece of malware code that takes advantage of a vulnerability in a software application, usually the operating system or a web browser to infect a computer. Exploits usually target a computer by means of a drive-by download – the user has no idea that a download has even taken place. XPL recommends not visiting this web site regardless if your computer has been patched for the vulnerability.
Scanned:
Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Our Advice:
This page contains at least one exploit. You should not click on this link without appropriate anti-exploit protection on your PC,

All other link scanners failed on this one, even Norton Safe Web’s…

polonus

I rarely check the other link scanners as they simply aren’t up to this task, whilst the Exploit Prevention Lab LinkScanner picked up this one it misses lots too.

Fortunately the avast scanners don’t, you can see the rise in this type of hacked site in the avast summary of Virus Reports http://www.avast.com/eng/latest-virus-report.html.

Blocked domains is also top of the pile at the moment.
HTML:iFrame.inf, VBS:obfuscated-gen, HTML:script-inf, also feature near the top.

Hi DavidR,

Agree with you there, and this is why we need a stronger webshield still:
http://jeremiahgrossman.blogspot.com/2009/02/top-ten-web-hacking-techniques-of-2008.html
(and the other 60 that are mentioned there, completing the top 70 of 2008),

polonus

You mean me? I do have Avast set to auto-update the program and virus database and Webshield is turned on

Yes I believe he did as you reported it as the network shield blocking rather than the web shield blocking, as in my image showing it being detected by the web shield. So did you get an alert the same as the image I posted ?

The latest VPS released today is 090225-0.

I never did get a warning like either of the images you posted, just this (I don’t know why I didn’t think to take a screenshot before).

I still haven’t heard back from them on the e-mail I sent telling them of the problem

Well I didn’t get any network shield alert as the web shield stops the iframe tag from attempting to go/going to the site. This could be because a) you don’t have the latest version of the VPS, which you didn’t mention, b) the web shield isn’t scanning the content (disabled, OS doesn’t support transparent proxy, or unsupported browser), c) the web shield has been tweaked/customised and as such doesn’t function correctly.

What is your Operating System ?
What is your Browser ?

Have you made any changes to the web shield default settings ?
Check and see if the web shield is actually scanning content, by left clicking on the avast ‘a’ icon, click the Details… >> button. Now select the Web Shield provider and you should see some stats, Last scanned: and Scanned total: these should be constantly updated as you browse different sites, are they ?

Do you use a proxy to connect to the internet (usually ISP or web accelerator, etc.) ?

You shouldn’t see the first image as that was created by me from the code of the page, but you should have seen the second if you had the latest VPS version and the web shield was working correctly.

At the moment, the file version of the vps when I go to menu/about avast is 090226-0

I haven’t done anything to the web shield, so that’s not it.

My operating system is WinXP and the browser used when I took the screenshot atached to my last post was Opera 9.63

Just before this post, I tried that site in IE7 and got this warning

Forgot to say that I connect either through Bellsouth DSL at work or Comcast Cable at home, both through a wireless modem

OK with IE7 and the latest VPS you accessed the site and got what effectively is the standard shield alert. Did you not retry it with Opera ?

You haven’t confirmed if the web shield is in fact scanning http content, did you not check those fields I suggested ?

You didn’t answer the question about do you use any proxy to connect to the internet ?

Now the problem with some browsers is that when the web shield alerts, the only option given is abort connection, that even though avast aborts the connection the browser completes the download. That is how the html page got into the browser cache, but still if you didn’t get the web shield alert there is something wrong and why the questions I asked are very important to trying to resolve the problem.

I retried it in Opera and got the same warning seen in the clipboard01 screenshot I posted.

I looked through your other posts, but I’m missing something. What fields are you referring to? In Web Shield, nothing shows in Last Scanned, though smething does show in that line n Standard Shield. Does that mean that the Web Shield isn’t scanning http content?

I don’t know if I’m using a proxy or not. I know nothing about proxies other than that they exist.

That certainly means that the web shield isn’t scanning http traffic on port 80. See image for the fields that indicate if content is being scanned.

Why it isn’t scanning is the question, check the Internet Explorer, Tools, Internet Options, Connections tab, Settings… button. If you were using a proxy this is where it would be indicated. Then if nothing is there there is no requirement by your ISP to use a proxy, the other possibility is if you use any other software which uses a proxy, web accelerator, etc. I can’t help you find that as there are too many of them, you have to know what is running on your system as I don’t know that.

Other possibilities are remnants of another AV or security application/firewall.
Have (or did) you another AV installed in this system, if so what was it and how did you get rid of it ?
What other security based software do you have that might have an impact ?
What is your firewall ?

You could try to manually set the browsers to use the web shield proxy (the IE settings are for IE6 I believe, you would have to find the IE7 equivalent:

For IE - broadband users: - Tutorial - Web Shield Proxy Set-up for IE
For IE - dialup users - Tutorial - Web Shield Proxy Set-up for IE (Dial-up)
For Firefox users - Tutorial - Web Shield Proxy Set-up for Firefox
Opera Users - Tools> Preferences> Advanced> Network> Proxy Servers, see image2.

The directions for IE7 are apparently the same for IE7. Nothing was different and WebShield immediately scanned anything I went to. When I tried grandcanyonskywalk.com, the nly difference was that the only option in the trojan warning box was “abort connection” and after selecting that, the page’s opening flash continued normrally. When I tried it with Opera after following your instructions, I got the exact same results I did in IE7.

Overall, much thanx for your help! I realy do appreciate it!

You’re welcome.

That is correct the only option on the web shield alert is abort connection, which just drops that items connection and not your internet connection. So you would have to close that pages tab as nothing is going to load since that connection was dropped.