Abuse reports and suspension of bore.pub service

[ekzhang]

I received the following email from Porkbun today.

This is disappointing, bore has been running for almost three years now and the use of the public instance for phishing has only recently started. It's intended as a public service for developers, and I'm disheartened that it's started being abused like this, even after I instituted a 24 hour timeout to mitigate attacks like this in previous communications with DigitalOcean.

I'll be in contact with Porkbun on this but can't guarantee that we'll still support running bore.pub. If that's the case, you'll need to self-host bore server to continue using bore.

---

Porkbun
PO Box 364, Yardley, PA 19067
+1 (833) 365-1661 | cleandns.com | reports@cleandns.email

Hello there,

We're emailing you to let you know that the domains listed below were suspended due to a violation of Porkbun's Domain Name Registration Agreement.

OFFENDING DOMAINS

• bore[.]pub

Below are the reported URLs, screenshots (if applicable), and a link to the abuse report.

REPORTED URLS

• hXXp://bore[.]pub:34856/capi1/index.php 1 screenshot

EXPLANATION OF ABUSE AND EVIDENCE

This domain has been recently reported for phishing.
The attached screenshot highlights the presence of sensitive information input and the appearance of (the) Capital One.
At the time of the report, the domain was 998 days old, and our analysis reveals the following characteristics about the domain:
the domain has been reported 13 time(s).
These factors strongly indicate phishing activity.

If you believe it was suspended in error, please reply to this email. Please note, emails sent to abuse@porkbun.com will not receive a response.

NOTE: When replying, please DO NOT alter the subject line.

Thank you,

The Porkbun Abuse Department

CLEANDNS CASE LINK

The anonymous case view link provides users with a detailed view of the abuse engaging on the reported domains. Additional information includes WHOIS/DNS lookup, screenshots, full URL, and explanation of abuse.

http://url718.reports.cleandns.space/ls/click?upn=u001.Ff1j-2BYc-2FrmuXqSLWCQUAcoK2gMY23YbJblR7Y-2Bp7gjfG-2BOdrhQNT-2FcNZD3eOPztwER6fKbguKzsaakKSJcDyWDKvWbgDIFA7dAd0qv0tOgc-3DmU4m_Orh5DMiW70sQQNBZqFE8UbBO5C7SZ2BWmlo6FBE8hxzNCAbiBrh1nZPzSELHrJPxxzjGYd6-2FfNMc224VcT66uCtmUjWzjqlZ1uFjNFi4hvdqrsJ61-2FRpLHpIUJy5C8tuUSh9hy3PmI9jMIuvRAPOUOnbOA2iRcJTYpz3EG5Qi0ic9jjuBUxxTeEFzPNjp5j-2Fl4TcTZnXilpwJJLq20YaXw-3D-3D

[REF# 6770c706a03efad2d0844f7e]

Clicking on links contained in this email may lead to malicious code (including but not limited to viruses, trojans, key loggers, and worms) that could infect and/or damage your computer and/or network. Please exercise extreme caution when clicking on such links. If you have any doubts about any such links or attachments, please contact your system administrator or network supervisor before clicking on any of those links. Porkbun assumes no responsibility for any damage that occurs arising out of such actions.

[pkiv]

Hey @ekzhang - I think someone was using bore.pub for a command and control sever. It's now being flagged by Amazon GuardDuty.

[ekzhang]

Hi folks, two updates:

1. Porkbun has not actually suspended my domain. It seems like they sent the email in error.
2. I'm getting continued reports of phishing on bore.pub, despite my interventions. If this continues, DigitalOcean will implement port blocks, which is not desirable for anyone.

As a result, I'm going to brown out bore.pub for the next week to raise awareness for this issue and hopefully dissuade whoever is using bore.pub for phishing. Please note that if I don't do this, cloud providers may take action on the service, this is my attempt to keep bore.pub running smoothly as a developer tool and prevent bad actors from using it.

If you are impacted by this, you can self-host bore server.

[Kataiser]

Tragic. I really hope this gets resolved, a public bore server has been a godsend

[rindonbrg]

sending thoughts and prayers

[StefMa]

Wow, that is super sad to see 😞

As a friend of free services I tried something and wanted to share with you here how to use bore server on Google Cloud.
Maybe it is helpful for someone.

• Spin up a e2-micro instance (this is a free instance, see https://cloud.google.com/free)
• Connect via SSH (in the browser is enough) and install rust and bore
  • sudo apt install build-essential // For some cc libs
  • curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh // cargo
  • cargo install bore-cli // After cargo, restart your shell with exec bash
• Create a new Firewall rule (https://console.cloud.google.com/net-security/firewall-manager/firewall-policies/list)
  • IP Range 0.0.0.0/0
  • Ports and stuf click on All
  • Direction: Incomming
  • Network default-network
• Go back to your ssh shell and start bore
• bore server

You can find the external IP of your instance in the VM overview:
https://console.cloud.google.com/compute/instances

Then you can connect locally as always:

bore local [LOCAL_PORT] --to [VM_IP]

🎉

[vervoortkobe]

Sad to hear this. Bore.pub is such a great project, terrible that people use it for malicious purposes! Hope the issue gets resolved very soon! 🙏

For those who were using bore.pub for proxying to their Minecraft server: try Playit.gg as temporary alternative! (They also support TCP & UDP, but no HTTP)

[rayliverified]

Just spent 15 minutes fiddling with ports on my local network. What a terrible situation and quite the interesting start to me trying out bore.

Dang, this abuse sucks. I guess this explains a part of why the paid services are so expensive.

[christowiz]

This is unfortunate. Bore has been my favorite tunneling utility so far. I've tried quite a few and the ease of use is what got me. I'll may re-try some others but I'll most likely self-host with Bore.

[bobbercheng]

Bore provides me great tunnel experience. For who is looking for self host, you can use my GCP server IP 34.123.61.175 as temporary solution.

[juleast]

Bore provides me great tunnel experience. For who is looking for self host, you can use my GCP server IP 34.123.61.175 as temporary solution.

Thanks! How long will you keep this up?

[bobbercheng]

At least one year, till end of 2025.

[bOguzhan]

I would highly recomment setting up an AWS free tier coupled with custom domain, voila. Hope the issue resolves soon.