Malware

2010/04/24 at 10:16 am Lazeez 8 comments

Yesterday, this site got hacked again! No, not storiesonline.net, but this blog, hosted at storiesonline.org.

In the last three weeks it happened two times prior to this. One time a redirect iframe got injected into the database and the second time, another iframe got injected into the site’s index page. I cleaned them up each time after changing all my passwords from the database’s password to the sftp to the management. Everything! I changed each and every password only to get hacked again.

It turned out that the hosting company, Network Solutions got all their servers hacked. They’re battling the problem, but as far as I can tell, they’re losing the battle. The proof was yesterday’s intrusion.

However, this time, it happened just as Google was checking the site and found the malware on it and blacklisted the site. And since I host most of the images used on storiesonline.net here on storiesonline.org, SOL.net got partially blacklisted.

That was the straw.

I moved the domain to a new host (one that I trust much more) and started the site from scratch, just in case the old site still had some backdoors inserted somewhere in WordPress’s complex database structure. I created a fresh wordpress installation, along with a fresh new theme (do you like it?) and imported the articles through an xml file. As far as I can tell, nothing got lost other than the malware.

After that, I requested a new review from Google and the new site passed with flying colour. Now it’s just a matter of time until all browsers fetch the new listings from Google and the warnings will go away.

Storiesonline none

#1 | Written by Deadly Ernest on 2010/04/24.

I like the look of this blog, nice and eye friendly, but not too glarey bright (as the white ones are). Only one issue – how do we find this from the usual SOL home page at:

http://storiesonline.net/home.php

I can’t see any links across from it. Am I going blind, or just missing something. If this is only visible from the base access page before you sign in, I’d only see it a few times each year, as I sign into SOL, and leave my system signed in with one or more SOL pages open nearly all the time. And when I do have to close down and boot up again, I usually go straight to My Library at:

http://storiesonline.net/library/my.php?list=ser&skip=0

So I miss the new member flash page.

It’s a shame about the host getting so badly hacked. Don’t you wish you could back hack the hackers?

Ernest
#2 | Written by Lazeez on 2010/04/24.

I restored the link on SOL’s home page. I had removed it yesterday when I realized that the links to this blog and the contents hosted here are affecting SOL.
#3 | Written by Christopher on 2010/04/26.

Well, with all due respect, the changing providers is your choice. But I doubt that you will be much more safe with your new host than you were with Network Solutions.
#4 | Written by Lazeez on 2010/04/26.

Well, we’ll just have to wait and see
#5 | Written by Dimwit on 2010/05/22.

Is there a problem? Yesterday and today it’s been impossible to get into the site. No 404, just very, very slow. As in 5 min and the page still hasn’t loaded.
#6 | Written by Lazeez on 2010/05/22.

Nothing more than a huge load on the site.
#7 | Written by Dimwit on 2010/05/22.

Ahhh. Thanks.
#8 | Written by Charles on 2011/04/08.

Carniegirl says you wouldn’t let her put comments in her story. Why is that? I enjoyed reading them with the story.

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