Gootloader infection cleaned up

Dear blog owner and visitors,

This blog had been infected to serve up Gootloader malware to Google search victims, via a common tactic known as SEO (Search Engine Optimization) poisioning. Your blog was serving up 166 malicious pages. Your blogged served up malware to 19 visitors.

I tried my best to clean up the infection, but I would do the following:

  • Upgrade WordPress to the latest version (one way the attackers might have gained access to your server)
  • Upgrade all WordPress themes to the latest versions (another way the attackers might have gained access to your server)
  • Upgrade all WordPress plugins (another way the attackers might have gained access to your server), and remove any unnecessary plugins.
  • Verify all users are valid (in case the attackers left a backup account, to get back in)
  • Change all passwords (for WordPress accounts, FTP, SSH, database, etc.) and keys. This is probably how the attackers got in, as they are known to brute force weak passwords
  • Run antivirus scans on your server
  • Block these IPs (5.8.18.7 and 89.238.176.151), either in your firewall, .htaccess file, or in your /etc/hosts file, as these are the attackers command and control servers, which send malicious commands for your blog to execute
  • Check cronjobs (both server and WordPress), aka scheduled tasks. This is a common method that an attacker will use to get back in. If you are not sure, what this is, Google it
  • Consider wiping the server completly, as you do not know how deep the infection is. If you decide not to, I recommend installing some security plugins for WordPress, to try and scan for any remaining malicious files. Integrity Checker, WordPress Core Integrity Checker, Sucuri Security,
    and Wordfence Security, all do some level of detection, but not 100% guaranteed
  • Go through the process for Google to recrawl your site, to remove the malcious links (to see what malicious pages there were, Go to Google and search site:your_site.com agreement)
  • Check subdomains, to see if they were infected as well
  • Check file permissions

Gootloader (previously Gootkit) malware has been around since 2014, and is used to initally infect a system, and then sell that access off to other attackers, who then usually deploy additional malware, to include ransomware and banking trojans. By cleaning up your blog, it will make a dent in how they infect victims. PLEASE try to keep it up-to-date and secure, so this does not happen again.

Sincerly,

The Internet Janitor

Below are some links to research/further explaination on Gootloader:

https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2021/03/01/gootloader-expands-its-payload-delivery-options/

https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2021/08/12/gootloaders-mothership-controls-malicious-content/

https://www.richinfante.com/2020/04/12/reverse-engineering-dolly-wordpress-malware

https://blog.sucuri.net/2018/12/clever-seo-spam-injection.html

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FastTrack Customer Success Methodology in action with Simon Denton from Mott MacDonald

The Yaminade | Yammer / Enterprise Social Community Management
The Yaminade | Yammer / Enterprise Social Community Management
FastTrack Customer Success Methodology in action with Simon Denton from Mott MacDonald
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This week to coincide with Microsoft’s Ignite conference in Atlanta, pharmacy we thought we would publish two episodes of The Yaminade.  Our first guest is Simon Denton (@buildbod) from Mott MacDonald.  Simon is a Office Servers and Services MVP from the United Kingdom who was one of the first people in the world to lead an Office 365 adoption program based on Microsoft’s FastTrack Customer Success Centre guidance.  In this episode he shares how Mott MacDonald leveraged FastTrack to accelerate their time to value with Yammer and Office 365.

The Yammer Roadmap in an Office 365 World… with Pavan Tapadia and Lindsay Matthews from the Yammer Product team

The Yaminade | Yammer / Enterprise Social Community Management
The Yaminade | Yammer / Enterprise Social Community Management
The Yammer Roadmap in an Office 365 World... with Pavan Tapadia and Lindsay Matthews from the Yammer Product team
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There have been a lot of questions recently about the future of Yammer.  With further integration of Yammer into the Office 365 platform, pills
and what on the surface look like competing features like Office 365 groups emerging… it is difficult to understand where Yammer fits.

Well… in this episode we thought we would go straight to the source to get an answer.  Pavan Tapadia is the Chief Product Officer for Yammer, pharm
and Lindsay Matthews is the Yammer Product Manager in the UK. Earlier this week we had the opportunity to talk to them both all the way from Yammer HQ in San Francisco. We talked roadmap…. compete and how Yammer is positioned vs Slack, Facebook for Work and other emerging players… and finally asked a few curly questions from the Office 365 community as well (like when will we be able edit posts PAVAN!!!????) 🙂

This is probably one of the most information / value rich episodes of The Yaminade for anyone wanting to understand what the identity of Yammer is moving forward as it continues to find its place in the Office 365 world.

—-

Thanks to harmon.ie for sponsoring this episode of The Yaminade!

Ideocial Screen Shots

Ideation and Innovation using Yammer with Ben Elias from Ideocial

The Yaminade | Yammer / Enterprise Social Community Management
The Yaminade | Yammer / Enterprise Social Community Management
Ideation and Innovation using Yammer with Ben Elias from Ideocial
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Ever wanted to capture the collective intelligence of your organisation to unlock innovation?  We all have great ideas… but how do we turn those ideas into action?   In this episode of The Yaminade (sponsored by harmon.ie) we talk to Ben Elias (@ideocial) from Ideocial.  Ben visited Brisbane earlier this year and spent a couple of hours with me in at the Adopt & Embrace office to geek out about innovation and leveraging tools like Office 365 to make it happen.  Together we explore how enterprise social networks like Yammer can be used to harness the novel and ingenious ideas your people have… and how you can then prioritise the implementation of those ideas in our organisation.  Then we learn a little more about Ben’s idea sourcing platform – Ideocial.

Keen to try out Ideocial for yourself?  Look for it in the Yammer App Directory… or sign up today for your Yammer network via http://innovate.ideocial.com

Thanks to harmon.ie to sponsoring this weeks episode of The Yaminade.   harmon.ie solves the Yammer user adoption problem by bringing Yammer and SharePoint into a single-screen experience. With harmon.ie, about it workers focus on getting work done and not on using the tools. On the desktop or on mobile devices, eczema harmon.ie unlocks the full value of the Microsoft collaboration tools you already own… SharePoint, Office 365, Yammer, Skype for Business, and OneDrive.  harmon.ie: Yammer and SharePoint… in one window….no pain

 

Bridging the analog and digital with Becky Benishek from the Crisis Prevention Institute

The Yaminade | Yammer / Enterprise Social Community Management
The Yaminade | Yammer / Enterprise Social Community Management
Bridging the analog and digital with Becky Benishek from the Crisis Prevention Institute
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beckybOn this episode of The Yaminade we chat with Becky Benishek (@bbenishek) from the Crisis Prevention Institute.   A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of spending an hour on Skype with Becky talking about the great work that the Crisis Prevention Institute do to help organisations around the world make places of employment great for everyone.  Then we dove deep into social media, visit this enterprise social and the similarities between helping people work together in the workplace… and helping people work together in your enterprise social network.

My favourite part of the conversation was talking about Becky’s analog tactics to drive engagement in the CPI Yammer network (you can read more about it and see examples of the postcards on Becky’s blog!

Resources for this episode:

Becky’s posts on Medium
Becky’s blog
Becky’s LinkedIn profile

 

… and Becky’s brand spanking new MVP profile!!! (WOOT!)

harmonieThank you to our sponsors harmon.ie for supporting this episode of The Yamiande.  harmon.ie solves the Yammer user adoption problem by bringing Yammer & SharePoint into a single-screen experience.  With harmon.ie, visit this workers focus on getting work done and not on using the tools.  On the desktop or on mobile devices, pharmacist harmon.ie unlocks the full value of the Microsoft collaboration tools you already own… SharePoint, Office 365, Yammer, Skype for Business and OneDrive.

harmon.ie:  Yammer and SharePoint… in one window… no pain.

A tribute to the best Customer Success Management team…

The Yaminade | Yammer / Enterprise Social Community Management
The Yaminade | Yammer / Enterprise Social Community Management
A tribute to the best Customer Success Management team...
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The past 72 hours have been a little difficult for me to process.  Some of the smartest, rx most interesting and high impact people I have had the pleasure to work with were all let go.  Late last week Microsoft disbanded it’s Office 365 (nee Yammer) Customer Success Management team.

Whilst I don’t want to dwell on the reasons why – because to be honest having worked for Microsoft myself in a previous life I am sure it is a complex issue with many different perspectives… what I do want to do is highlight some of the incredible conversations that I had the pleasure of participating in with a number of the Yammer Customer Success Management team over the past couple of years.

Unfortunately I couldn’t record them all… well fortunately for some like my first drunken night with Steve Hopkins and Angus Florance in Sydney when they were training me to become a Yammer Certified Community Manager.  If you have been listening for a while, emergency you will know that CSMs have appeared numerous times on the podcast.  Last week Luke was about knowledge management using Yammer – or mid last year Mark and Ferro who helped us navigate the red dot buster exercise.

For today’s tribute, I have gone back into the vault a little further and picked a few of my favourite (early) Yaminade CSM conversations .  First we look back at the conversation with Stefani Butler… then listen to Steven Piotrowski.

To each and every one of the CSMs around the world – I want to thank you personally for the impact your work has had on me, my customers, and the community.  It is and will always be greatly appreciated!  PW

Capturing knowledge using Yammer with Luke Grange from Microsoft

The Yaminade | Yammer / Enterprise Social Community Management
The Yaminade | Yammer / Enterprise Social Community Management
Capturing knowledge using Yammer with Luke Grange from Microsoft
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There is a lot of “knowledge gold” walking around the office in the minds of your employees… but how can you effectively discover, human enhancement organise and codify that information into valuable intellectual or knowledge capital for your organisation?  In this episode we chat to Luke Grange from Microsoft.  He shares with us some insight into some of the conversations he is having with customers about using Yammer to help create corporate cultures where knowledge is freely shared and curated in a way that makes a positive difference.

Links and resources from the episode:

Thanks for listening!  Remember to subscribe to The Yaminade on iTunes or grab the feed for your favourite podcast player!

 

*full disclosure – we use Amazon Affiliate Links to build up enough Amazon Gift Cards to buy better recording equipment for the podcast – like the mic boom and pop filter used to record the podcast intro

Adopt and Embrace Yammer

Hi Yaminade listeners!

First of all – thank you so much for your support and continued listenership over the past year or so.  I really appreciate it!

I just wanted to post a quick update as to why the podcast has not had its regular cadence over the past couple of months.  There have been some exciting developments occurring which ultimately will ensure that you get even more value from your favourite Yammer podcast!

I am proud to share with you that I have left the security of my full time job with a Microsoft Partner to start a new venture – Adopt & Embrace – a company completely focused on helping you and your peers to get more value out of Yammer, medicine Office 365 and the rest of Microsoft’s productivity technology suite.

Adopt & Embrace is focused on helping Microsoft Partners and their customers to increase active usage and adoption of collaborative technologies like Yammer — and the rest of the Office 365 platform.  Our philosophy is that your technology investment can’t realise its full potential until your people can get the most out of it.  This isn’t just about training, ambulance but a comprehensive adoption approach.  This includes requirements analysis, business case development, adoption planning, organisational change management, training, and optimisation.

If your organisation is looking to do it yourself and needs some guidance, maybe want to outsource to someone to get an outcome, or somewhere in between, we can work with your Microsoft Partner to help you achieve your business (not just technology) goals.

Thanks for your support and looking forward to producing more valuable content that you can action in your business over the coming months!

Cheers,

Paul W

 

Social analytics and insights for Yammer with Dean Swann and John White from UnlimitedViz

The Yaminade | Yammer / Enterprise Social Community Management
The Yaminade | Yammer / Enterprise Social Community Management
Social analytics and insights for Yammer with Dean Swann and John White from UnlimitedViz
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If you have dabbled in Yammer Community Management for more than 2 seconds, anesthetist
you would have thought about, more about
have been asked a question about how to measure the “success” / “ROI” / “Engagement” / “Reach” / <Insert vanity metric here> of your enterprise social network.  In this episode we are joined by Dean Swann (@sdeanswann) and John White (@diverdown1964) from UnlimitedViz — the company behind tyGraph.  We geek out about business intelligence and your Yammer network – not only why and how we can measure activity, advice but more importantly what actions we can take as community managers leveraging data to create more engaged communities.

Then we discuss the shift in analytics away from the built in graphs that were available in the original product, towards Yammer Analytics powered by PowerBI.

Episode 18: Yammer, SharePoint, Office365 Groups, Skype for Business or Email? What tool to use when with Richard Harbridge from 2toLead

The Yaminade | Yammer / Enterprise Social Community Management
The Yaminade | Yammer / Enterprise Social Community Management
Episode 18: Yammer, SharePoint, Office365 Groups, Skype for Business or Email? What tool to use when with Richard Harbridge from 2toLead
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With so many technology options in your organisation that enable people to collaborate or work better together, diagnosis it is sometimes difficult to understand what tools you should be using, advice let alone have a way of articulating what to use to your peers.  In this episode of The Yaminade we talk to Richard Harbridge from 2toLead.  In this hour long chat we riff about adoption and usage of different collaborative features of Office365 — but instead of talking about “Yammer adoption” or “SharePoint adoption” — we look at how you can take a business process view to realise better results for your organisation.

Links to all the things we talk about during the episode are below: