I have a simple php form to request a call back - just name & number. No captcha.
But I get random responses like this:
Name: Tyler
Phone: 46260953184
But not just one, about 10-12 at a time - all different, none are real numbers.
Am I being searched out for possible weaknesses in the php script for hacking? My wordpress blog was brought down by hackers in the far east last year, so you can imagine my concern.
If it’s not, then what is it, does anyone else experience similar?
Thanks
It’s possible. It happens to everyone eventually. You can usually spot it by keeping a PHP error log. You’ll see all kinds of attempts to exploit your scripts which show as PHP errors.
Some examples from a recent attempt on one of my servers:
[11-Mar-2013 19:21:57 America/New_York] PHP Fatal error: WHERE client_id = /etc/passwd
[11-Mar-2013 19:22:02 America/New_York] PHP Fatal error: WHERE client_id = ;cat /etc/passwd;
[11-Mar-2013 19:22:02 America/New_York] PHP Fatal error: WHERE client_id = …/…//…/…//…/…//…/…//…/…//…/…//…/…//…/…//etc/passwd
Your best protection is to attack your own website with the same tools they are using. This way you can find the vulnerabilities (and fix them) before someone else does.
sqlmap is pretty popular:
http://sqlmap.org/
This is why it’s extremely important to use prepared statements (mysqli or PDO) and simply never use mysql_* functions again.