Warning: Thousands of Indonesian Campus Repositories Infiltrated by Online Gambling—Is Yours One of Them?

In recent months, the Indonesian academic digital landscape has been rocked by a specific and massive wave of cyberattacks: the hijacking of Institutional Repositories (specifically EPrints) by illegal online gambling syndicates. This is not an isolated incident, but a structured attack exploiting specific vulnerabilities in academic publication platforms.

As a repository manager, you might believe your system is secure. However, your server could currently be acting as a “host” for unauthorized parties looking to boost traffic to illegal websites—without you even realizing it.

Why is This Attack So Aggressive in Indonesia?

The big question is: Why target campus repositories (.ac.id domains)?

The perpetrators behind online gambling (judol) operations sophisticatedly understand Search Engine Optimization (SEO) algorithms. Educational domains like .ac.id possess extremely high Domain Authority (DA) and Trust Flow in the eyes of Google. A backlink or a page embedded within a university domain is considered “trusted” and authoritative.

Hackers hijack your institution’s reputation to skyrocket their gambling sites’ rankings on search engines. Indonesia is a prime target due to the sheer volume of internet users and the prevalence of repository systems running on outdated versions lacking critical security patches.

The Modus Operandi: “Hiding in the Waiting Room”

Based on our team’s investigation, these attacks often do not involve defacing your homepage, making them difficult to detect visually.

How it works:

1. Infiltration: Attackers register a standard user account and initiate a new deposit.
2. The Payload: They upload malicious files (typically .html, .phtml, or .htm) containing gambling scripts or landing pages.
3. The Exploit: The fatal flaw lies in the workflow. Even though the deposit remains in the “Under Review” buffer and has not been approved by an editor, the uploaded file is often accessible via a direct URL and is immediately crawled/indexed by Google.

How to Check if Your Repository is Infected

You can perform a simple audit using Google Dorks to see if your domain has been compromised. Type the following into the Google search bar:

site:repository.your-campus.ac.id "gacor" site:repository.your-campus.ac.id "slot" site:repository.your-campus.ac.id "mahjong" site:repository.your-campus.ac.id "RTP"

If the search results display strange pages unrelated to academic journals but hosted on your URL, your repository security has been breached.

Fatal Consequences for Institutions

Leaving this vulnerability unaddressed is not just a technical oversight; it is a legal and reputational hazard:

1. Academic Reputation Damage: Your institution may be viewed as negligent in maintaining its digital infrastructure.
2. Google Blacklisting: If Google’s algorithms detect excessive spam activity, your entire domain could be penalized (de-indexed). This means legitimate research by your lecturers and students will vanish from search results.
3. Regulatory Blocking (TrustPositif): There is a high risk of your repository domain being blocked by Indonesian ISPs and Kominfo for facilitating illegal gambling content.

First Aid: Manual Cleanup

If you are already infected, your IT team must act immediately:

1. Audit Users: Delete accounts registered with suspicious emails or non-institutional domains.
2. Clear the Buffer: Check the “Review” area and delete deposits containing suspicious HTML files.
3. Server Scrub: Perform a scan of your server directories to physically remove the injected files.
4. Request Re-indexing: Use Google Search Console to request the removal of the gambling pages from Google’s cache.

Long-Term Solution: Comprehensive Protection

Cleaning up the files is only a temporary fix. If you don’t change the locks, the intruders will return. Here is the protection strategy you need:

1. Upgrade to the Latest EPrints Version The EPrints community regularly releases updates. Ensure you are not running an outdated version riddled with known vulnerabilities.

2. OJT Guardian: Exclusive Protection for Your Repository We at OpenJournalTheme understand that campus IT teams often lack the time or resources to monitor security 24/7. That is why we introduced OJT Guardian.

OJT Guardian is a premium security service designed specifically to protect EPrints and OJS ecosystems. By activating OJT Guardian, you secure:

• Proactive Vulnerability Patching: We seal specific security holes (such as the HTML upload bug) before hackers can exploit them.
• Malware Hunter : Our proprietary active scanning engine. Malware Hunter automatically detects, intercepts, and quarantines malicious files (like gambling HTML injections) the moment they enter the deposit buffer—ensuring they never get indexed by Google.
• Intelligent File Upload Filter: A system that automatically rejects and quarantines malicious files attempting to enter the deposit system.
• Server Hardening: Advanced server configurations to block malicious bot traffic and unauthorized access.

Do not gamble with your institution’s reputation.

Secure your digital assets today. Contact the OpenJournalTheme team to consult on implementing OJT Guardian for your repository.