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Securing the Recommend Us feature in PostNuke/PHP Nuke
Posted by: David on Mar 28, 2008 - 04:00 PM
php_security
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I've noticed some oddball email bounces stemming from the Recommend_Us module trying to send email to non-existent email addresses. A lot of them would contain spam words which I won't list here. I came to the conclusion that this is a malicious attack on a PostNuke/PHP Nuke site trying to blacklist the server hosting the site as a source of spam. Therefore I think it is important that if you run a PostNuke or PHPNuke site that you take steps to secure the "Recommend Us" module. Since I am running PostNuke, the solution here is based for that CMS, but the same concepts apply for PHP Nuke.
Basically we want to make sure that a user is logged in before he/she can recommend the site/story from the site.
Here are the steps:
head over to your root PostNuke directory, go to modules, and Recommend_Us.
Make a backup copy of index.php
Edit the file index.php.
Look for instances of:
if (pnUserLoggedIn()) {
and in the else portion, put in something like the following:
die("You must be a member and logged in to send a recommendation.");
Note that some already have the "else" and some you will have to add yourself.
Next I would recommend changing the text input boxes for "Your name" and "Your email" into hidden inputs instead. For instance, change:
echo "
<table>
<tr>
<td><span class=\"pn-normal\"><label for=\"YOURNAME\">"._FYOURNAME."</label></span></td>
<td><input type=\"text\" name=\"yname\" value=\"$yn\" SIZE=\"25\" maxlength=\"25\" id=\"YOURNAME\" tabindex=\"0\" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><span class=\"pn-normal\"><label for=\"YOUREMAIL\">"._FYOUREMAIL."</label></span></td>
<td><input type=\"text\" name=\"ymail\" value=\"$ye\" size=\"25\" id=\"YOUREMAIL\" tabindex=\"0\" /></td>
</tr>
to
echo "<table>
<input type=hidden name=\"yname\" value=\"$yn\"> <input type=hidden name=\"ymail\" value=\"$ye\">
And voila you have just secured the recommendation feature from anonymous malicious users.
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