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Comment by reticulates

11 hours ago

Can you explain how the trap works? The exploit gives you access to the machine which you can then use to wipe the evidence of your intrusion - right? There is nothing to leak by taking control of the machine.

Is the trap theory that this server isn’t really running a vulnerable version of php, and is instead recording all traffic?

They can be running a vulnerable version of PHP but also recording all traffic in a way that does not allow for wiping evidence afterwards. For example, if the PHP server was behind another server routing the raw IP packets and running tcpdump. Since the author of the site controls the TLS cert private key, TLS does not protect again the author eavesdropping.

The exploit gives you access to a machine, not necessarily the one terminating TLS and keeping logs.

really?

1. there's no actual evidence that the key to the wallet is on this machine at all. it would be trivial to add a service that would sign challenges to prove so

2. a working RCE against PHP is worth much more than $1000, attacking this machine would easily burn that

  • >it would be trivial to add a service that would sign challenges to prove so

    If the author was being dishonest about the key, they could just keep the key on another secure server and have the vulnerable one forward the challenge requests to it.