Apache.Org attack

I wrote about the dangers of URL shortening services, here is a real world attack on the Apache.org web site.


On April 5th, the attackers via a compromised Slicehost server opened a new issue, INFRA-2591. This issue contained the following text:

ive got this error while browsing some projects in jira http://tinyurl.com/XXXXXXXXX [obscured]

Tinyurl is a URL redirection and shortening tool. This specific URL redirected back to the Apache instance of JIRA, at a special URL containing a cross site scripting (XSS) attack. The attack was crafted to steal the session cookie from the user logged-in to JIRA. When this issue was opened against the Infrastructure team, several of our administators clicked on the link. This compromised their sessions, including their JIRA administrator rights.

The incident report issued by the Apache team is here