Security Incident Response

A university website was compromised with an SEO spam injection attack. Malicious code was inserting hidden links and redirects, damaging the institution's search rankings and reputation. The extent of the compromise was unknown, and the attack vector needed to be identified to prevent recurrence.

We conducted a comprehensive forensic investigation to understand the full scope of the compromise:

• Timeline Analysis: Used Internet Archive to determine when clean vs. infected versions existed
• Database Forensics: Analyzed WordPress database for malicious entries
• Code Analysis: Examined WordPress core, themes, and plugins for injected code
• Backup Restoration: Restored backups in isolated environment for comparison analysis
• Attack Vector Identification: Traced the entry point of the compromise

Complete incident remediation within 48 hours. Beyond cleanup, we developed two preventive tools: (1) WordPress Plugin for real-time SEO spam injection detection with daily reporting, (2) Web Scanner Application for URL-based scanning checking 20+ categories of SEO spam patterns across single pages or entire sites.

• Incident response within 48 hours
• Complete malware removal and site restoration
• Attack vector identified and patched
• Ongoing monitoring via custom WordPress plugin
• Reusable scanning tool for future assessments