We're back - unexpected forums outage

[Janet H]

An exploit in our software was taken advantage of by some hackers who linked to a malicious site. It appears there was a little over 4 hours between the time it happened and the time we took the servers offline Thursday.


In an effort to minimize damage to the board we opted to shut everything down while we investigated the issue and formulated a game plan. Our team (server admins, programmers, and software vendors) coordinated and developed a plan to remove the malicious files and secure the servers. We believe that forum members should not have any system issues associated with this so long they didn't visit the malicious site AND install anything.

While the service interruption was unfortunate, it was important to us to make sure this issue was fully addressed before returning to business as usual. Protecting our community from this kind of intrusion is paramount and we'll post more info here as it becomes available. It's possible that we may need to continue tweak the forum setup and if so, we may have another service interruption.

We thank you for understanding

 

[mfdrookie516]

Glad you guys are on top of everything Also glad its back up too

 

[Lynae]

Yes thank you! I panicked when I couldnt load this page!!!!
What exactly did these hackers do??
You folks are extremely efficient!

 

[dkpate]

Two thumbs up to you guy and gals!!! Thanks!

 

[Blueiz]

Great job in getting the forum back up and running. I'd also like to say thanks for keeping us updated on what was happening while the site was down

 

[melosu58]

Great job everyone.

 

[divedeep1689]

great job thanks for updates!

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

I use Kaspersky Anti-Virus and every time I have clicked on anything today it tells me that Firfox is trying to access a site used to steal credit card numbers and other personal information, and it lists http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/test_domain.js. I have never had this come up before until today, and it wasn't until this afternoon.

 

[WhiteDevil]

Post any info you can, IP's ect.

 

[Andy R]

It apprears to be happening on many sites:
*Beware* Google Ads Links to Phishing Pages on Google page

Here is one of the discussions on Google AdSense support:
Kaspersky blocking AdSense and flagging as phising - AdSense Help

You can read other reports on the same issue here:
AdSense Basics and Policies - AdSense Help

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

It was a Phishing alert. Forgot to mention that.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

And now it's apparently not doing it as my Kaspersky has updated 25 minutes ago. But on the Phishing monitor it caught about 20 attempts as I was logging on. Looks like it's a google issue?

 

[cwt]

best of luck with the sysadmin stuff... I'm on-call this week for my IT job and it's rarely fun. My Firefox browser crashed frequently yesterday, on multiple PCs, and I upgraded them to the latest version (3.5, had been on 3.0.15). Both were on WinXP too... no problem with the Vista laptop. Can't be too careful...

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

I leave Firefox on automatic updates & never have a prob. Kaspersky is the best AV program I have ever used. I use Acronis True Image for backup. All those protective steps and I've never had to use any of it knock on wood. Knowing what programs to use and not to use is 99.99999% of safety!!

Been working with PCs since the IBM 8088 came out in 1980. Dad worked for IBM. It cost him $6000 with his 40% discount and had 2 5-1/4" floppy drives, 64K of ram, and an RGB monitor. I remember when Win 98B was rock solid. I used it until WinXP proved itself and I'll use it until W7 proves itself, or until I just don't have a choice, like when they discontinued giving updates for 98. Never even looked at Vista, why bother.

 

[mfdrookie516]

i dont get viruses... i have a mac