Thursday, August 27, 2009

I Have Been Hacked Again By Malware Miscreants

This morning I got a message telling me that Google was warning searchers, once more, that visiting my Eyes on Texas website could harm their computer. I quickly did a site:durangotexas.com check and saw no problem.

Shortly after that I found out I did have a problem. Again. Last Saturday's hacker attack was from something called metastatic.net. Today's is from mega-tracker.net.

I checked my Google Webmaster Tools to see the red "This site may be distributing malware" warning. When I click for details it says upon further review the website was found clean. This was before I'd found and removed the infection from the 10 pages Google listed.

After I removed the infection I called my web hosting company to try and find out why this is happening. After Saturday's debacle I'd changed my passwords, making them way more complicated. I'd made other suggested security changes. Today I was told to make changes to my FTP permissions. It was confusing, but I think I've made the changes.

The day started off real nice, with a long swim in the dark. It has gone downhill ever since then.

6 comments:

Cheap Tricks and Costly Truths said...

Durango, I only get the attack message when I follow the link from this blog. I just tried it like 3 seconds ago (3:12PM). When I type in the URL in a new tab, I go straight to your website without a problem, no warnings, just as pretty as before. Maybe, you should remove the link and re-add? You know more than I do, but it's worth a try. :)

Durango said...

When I click on the link in the blog I have no problem. It's when people do a search and it brings up the website in Google, then they see the dire warning. Google 'turner falls' and you'll see the problem.

Cheap Tricks and Costly Truths said...

YUCK! I just tried it...that's tres mal.

twister said...

You said you called your web-host, what did they say?

Durango said...

Twister---I was on the phone with them a long time. I'd not done one of their suggested security fixes to the FTP account. Basically because the written instructions were in Ukrainese and I didn't understand them. But the phone helper explained how to make 2 files in notepad with the linux code that blocks any IP address but mine from accessing my files. She also escalated the status to critical, whatever that means. All in all, very frustrating. And the AdSense revenue is down again due to Google searches scaring people off.

twister said...

That's really unfortunate to be hacked like that. I hope that this last effort put in place by you and your host works. I wouldn't get into a spitting match with anyone wearing a black hat over this. They take insults very personally.