54 posts related to: Best Method for Email Obfuscation?

Encoding & Decoding PHP Code

There are many ways to encode and decode PHP code. From the perspective of site security, there are three PHP functions — str_rot13(), base64_encode(), and gzinflate — that are frequently used to obfuscate malicious strings of PHP code. For those involved in the securing of websites, understanding how these functions are used to encode and decode encrypted chunks of PHP data is critical to accurate monitoring and expedient attack recovery. Continue reading »

PayPal Phishing Spam

Just a heads up to anyone else getting the occasional PayPal phishing spam.. Usually it’s pretty easy to spot one of those crafty phishing emails, just hover over any links before clicking to view the real URL in the status bar. You know, the link says something like, “click here to restore your PayPal account,” but you know that’s garbage and could easily prove it by checking the actual link URL, which is usually something completely bonkers, like: Continue reading »

10 Characters for Your WordPress Blacklist

[ Screenshot: Comment Spam in Moderation ]

Quick WordPress tip for easily and quietly blocking a ton of comment spam. Akismet and other programs are good at catching most spam, but every now and then a bunch of weird, foreign-language spam will sneak past the filters and post live to your site. Here’s a good example of the kind of stuff that’s easy to block: Continue reading »

2010 User-Agent Blacklist

The 2010 User-Agent Blacklist blocks hundreds of bad bots while ensuring open-access for the major search engines: Google, Bing, Ask, Yahoo, et al. Blocking bad user-agents is an effective addition to any security strategy. It works like this: your site is getting hammered by rogue bots that waste valuable server resources and bandwidth. So you grab a copy of the 2010 UA Blacklist from Perishable Press, include it in your site’s root .htaccess file, and enjoy better security and performance. […] Continue reading »

2010 IP Blacklist

Over the course of each year, I blacklist a considerable number of individual IP addresses. Every day, Perishable Press is hit with countless numbers of spammers, scrapers, crackers and all sorts of other hapless turds. Weekly examinations of my site’s error logs enable me to filter through the chaff and cherry-pick only the most heinous, nefarious attackers for blacklisting. Minor offenses are generally dismissed, but the evil bastards that insist on wasting resources running redundant automated scripts are immediately investigated […] Continue reading »

The 5-Minute CSS Mobile Makeover

[ Mobile Screenshots: WordPress.com, About.com, Go.com ]

More people are surfing the Web via mobile device than ever before. It’s just so convenient to have that mobile access to anything you need. Sadly, most websites have not yet considered their mobile visitors, who probably move on to the next site before trying to make sense of a jumbled mess. Those of you who surf the Mobile Web know exactly what I’m talking about here: sites that “get it” are a joy to visit, but those that don’t […] Continue reading »

4G Series: The Ultimate Referrer Blacklist, Featuring Over 8000 Banned Referrers

You have seen user-agent blacklists, IP blacklists, 4G Blacklists, and everything in between. Now, in this article, for your sheer and utter amusement, I present a collection of over 8000 blacklisted referrers. Shortcut: skip the article and jump to Disclaimer and Download » Referrer Spam Sucks For the uninitiated, in teh language of teh Web, a referrer is the online resource from whence a visitor happened to arrive at your site. For example, if Johnny the Wonder Parrot was visiting the […] Continue reading »

4G Series: The Ultimate User-Agent Blacklist, Featuring Over 1200 Bad Bots

As discussed in my recent article, Eight Ways to Blacklist with Apache’s mod_rewrite, one method of stopping spammers, scrapers, email harvesters, and malicious bots is to blacklist their associated user agents. Apache enables us to target bad user agents by testing the user-agent string against a predefined blacklist of unwanted visitors. Any bot identifying itself as one of the blacklisted agents is immediately and quietly denied access. While this certainly isn’t the most effective method of securing your site against […] Continue reading »

The Voice of the World Wide Web (Consortium)

Check out this sweet composition of aural styles discovered in the stylesheet for the W3C’s website: /* AURAL STYLES (via W3C) */ @media aural { h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 { voice-family: paul, male; stress: 20; richness: 90 } h1 { pitch: x-low; pitch-range: 90 } h2 { pitch: x-low; pitch-range: 80 } h3 { pitch: low; pitch-range: 70 } h4 { pitch: medium; pitch-range: 60 } h5 { pitch: medium; pitch-range: 50 } h6 { pitch: medium; pitch-range: […] Continue reading »

Deadly Killer

Priceless.. Continue reading »

Controlling Proxy Access with HTAccess

In my recent article on blocking proxy servers, I explain how to use HTAccess to deny site access to a wide range of proxy servers. The method works great, but some readers want to know how to allow access for specific proxy servers while denying access to as many other proxies as possible. Fortunately, the solution is as simple as adding a few lines to my original proxy-blocking method. Specifically, we may allow any requests coming from our whitelist of […] Continue reading »

Blacklist Candidate 2008-10-19

Welcome to the Perishable Press “Blacklist Candidate” series. In this post, we continue our new tradition of exposing, humiliating and banishing spammers, crackers and other worthless scumbags.. From time to time on the show, a contestant places a bid that is so absurd and so asinine that you literally laugh out loud, point at the monitor, and openly ridicule the pathetic loser. On such occasions, even the host of the show will laugh and mock the idiocy. Of course, this […] Continue reading »

Blacklist Candidate Series Summary

An ongoing series of articles on the fine art of malicious exploit detection and prevention. Learn about preventing the sneaky mischievous and deceptive practices of some of the worst spammers, scrapers, crackers, and other scumbags on the Internet. Continue reading »

Blacklist Candidate Number 2008-05-31

Welcome to the Perishable Press “Blacklist Candidate” series. In this post, we continue our new tradition of exposing, humiliating and banishing spammers, crackers and other worthless scumbags.. Just under the wire! Even so, this month’s official Blacklist-Candidate article may be the last monthly installment of the series. Although additional BC articles may appear in the future, it is unlikely that they will continue as a regular monthly feature. Oh sure, I see the tears streaming down your face, but think […] Continue reading »

Blacklist Candidate Number 2008-04-27

[ Photo: Bob Barker Snarls at Rod Roddy ]

Welcome to the Perishable Press “Blacklist Candidate” series. In this post, we continue our new tradition of exposing, humiliating and banishing spammers, crackers and other worthless scumbags.. Since the implementation of my 2G Blacklist, I have enjoyed a significant decrease in the overall number and variety of site attacks. In fact, I had to time-travel back to March 1st just to find a candidate worthy of this month’s blacklist spotlight. I felt like Rod Roddy looking over the Price-is-Right audience […] Continue reading »

How to Block Proxy Servers via htaccess

Not too long ago, a reader going by the name of bjarbj78 asked about how to block proxy servers from accessing her website. Apparently, bjarbj78 had taken the time to compile a proxy blacklist of over 9,000 domains, only to discover afterwards that the formulated htaccess blacklisting strategy didn’t work as expected. Here is the ineffective htaccess directive that was used: Deny from proxydomain.com proxydomain2.com Blacklisting proxy servers by blocking individual domains seems like a futile exercise. Although there are […] Continue reading »

« Newer Posts • 1234 • Previous Posts »