Feb08
I knew a virus had been found somewhere in my blog, and visitors told me they had had warnings from their anti-virus programs about a virus.
I found out the virus was actually a trojan horse, although the site it tried to direct visitors too was dead, that knowledge was of no consolation at all.
I searched through my files, but couldn’t find anything, so I asked my host to help. They isolated some suspicious javascript, and I thought ‘Yeah problem solved’.
Nope. The little ****** was still lurking somewhere, meanwhile my visitors are getting unwelcome messages, so I decided the only safe way was to delete the lot.
So, knowing I had backups, both my hosts, and my own, I went for it.
Calamity, the backups were infected too!
So, back to square 1, and start again from scratch. I managed to rescue the posts I wanted to keep, but I couldn’t save all the comments.
So, my friends, starting anew, almost, with an almost clean sheet and it is good to be back again!
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Oh God, Barry, that is really really crappy. I got a Trojan in my computer a couple of months ago, the file had been put into quarantine by the virus scan, all was then cleaned and deleted and that was it, nothing to anything like this. To have lost nearly everything, that must have been a right blow. Did you have yourself a couple of stiff drink? I think I would of
You want to have a wee chat with Barry Wells, he’s had his trials with the technical stuff of late and may be able to give you some pointers on saving content.
Anyway Barry, good to see you’ve not let it beat you.
Take care now
Julie
Julie recently posted..A Pyramid Scheme: Is That What Network Marketing Is?
Hi Julie,
Thanks for your visit and comment.
It was a bit of a disaster, but upwards and onwards. I just wish I knew where the nasty little thing had come from.
I am now going to be a lot more careful, and a lot more wary.
I will have a word with Barry, thanks for the tip,
Barry
Barry Ranns recently posted..It All Went Wrong!
Hello Barry
Good to see you are well and back on yer feet.
To Your Success
Respectfully
David Jackson
Hi David,
thanks for your concern mate, I appreciate it, it’s all under control now, and fortunately, I have some good friends online who are a great help too,
Barry
Barry Ranns recently posted..It All Went Wrong!
Oh dear mate, what a sh##er.
If, buts and maybe’s mate but for future reference if this happens again ask the hosting service to scan, find, isolate and delete tho offending trojan.
Last year I was having a bit of a mare, thinking I had been hacked. So I asked my host to scan my sites and they found a few trojans, pointed them out to me and I deleted them. A few days later I was still having a concern about being hacked so asked the hosting service to activate a blog back up… The activated a complete back up and reloaded the trojans.
I then went in and deleted them all again. The ones I had were from exe eBooks.
One thing I do all the time mate is write my posts in writer from OO, but word will do as well and then save them all. If you start doing that Barry then if this ever happens again you’ll have your content.
Now that you’re blog is clean get a back up created and then do it weekly mate.
I really do feel for you Barry and if there’s anything I can do to help please let me know. We’re all buddies Barry and I want us all to get to where we want to be.
Best of luck mate,
Barry
Barry Wells recently posted..You Have The Passion For Working Online But What Comes Next
Hi Barry,
Thanks for your visit, appreciated as always. We all learn from our mistakes, and wow, was that a big one!
I like the idea of using OO, which I prefer to word, cos it’s free, and easier to understand, and I will do that in future, and of course keep the copy. I keep wondering about using Google documents. I don’t really like the idea of leaving stuff in the care of someone else, butif my pc goes down, at least I still have my info.
I will be backing up, from now on, and thanks for all the advice and encouragement, it really means a lot to me,
Barry
Just a thought mate…..
If you still have a back up couldn’t you pin point the corrupt file, delete it and then install your back up?
Of course create a fresh back up before attempting anything
Barry
Barry Wells recently posted..Developing Alliances and Friendships With Other Bloggers
Hi Barry,
Both myself and my host searched for the file without success. The host did find some malicious javascript which was responsible for something, but couldn’t find anything else, so I am afraid I am stuck where I am, such is life. Thanks for the advice, mate, I DO appreciate it,
Barry
Barry Ranns recently posted..It All Went Wrong!
Oh Barry, so sorry that this has happened to you mate.
Why can’t these sick freaks turn their obvious talents to something constuctive.
I thought something was up when I tried to pay you a visit a few days ago.
All I can say mate is take Barry’s advice and backup to your hard drive regularly.
I don’t know who your hosting company is but if you have cPanel hosting, backup is a breeze.
I had some dramas myself this week when my wp-config file got damaged by a plugin. Fortunately Hostgator sorted it for me in minutes.
Keep your chin up mate, you have a good bunch of mates online and your comments will come back thick and fast.
Steve Hippel recently posted..WordPress Plugins For SEO
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the wise words and encouragement. My host, a smaller one is great, and on the ball when I submit tickets, it just seems this trojan, or even signature, was well hidden somewhere. It was an old virus which redirected the visitor elsewhere, but those websites have now gone.
The weekly backup is a definite from now on, thanks, and I am pleased you got your config file sorted out. I am afraid that any kind of coding, html or php is a foreign language to me, I really must try and do something about that.
Thanks for your visit mate, and yes, I am taking Barry’s advice,
Barry
Barry Ranns recently posted..It All Went Wrong!
Hi Barry, That’s a dapper new theme mate. Just noticed that my comment policy plugin doesn’t seem to be working at the moment though.
Not sure if you just haven’t got around to filling out the form yet. It should be OK, it’s pretty uncomplicated.
Anyway, what I wanted to say is, if you need a hand with any coding, you only have to shout mate.
I would be only to pleased to help you get back straight ASAP.
Steve Hippel recently posted..WordPress Plugins For SEO
Hi Steve,
I haven’t got it filled out yet, I will do as soon as. Thanks for the offer with the help, I appreciate it. I am okay with basic html, but struggle with anything more. I will certainly take you up on your offer mate if I cannot get it working.
I am still working with this new theme Easel, 2.0.7 by Philip M. Hofer (Frumph), but it seems to be better than many of the free ones,
Barry
Hey Barry,
Man, I’m so very sorry to hear you had all those problems. That really blows..
I’m sure you’ve already gotten so many words of advice already so I won’t chime in with the obvious again. I hate that your backups were infected as well. Like Steve said, I would these pesty people would find something more constructive to put their efforts toward. Like saving the world!
I will admit though, I like the look of this theme better. Just a little cleaner to me.
Best of luck to you and welcome back!
~Adrienne
Adrienne recently posted..How To Get Others To Build Your Links
Hi Adrienne,
Thanks for the visit and comments. The theme, Easel, is a free one, but it took me quite q while to find it, as it was like starting from scratch again, I wanted to pit more time into the theme selection.
These people who distribute viruses, or hack websites could do so much good if they really wanted to, but it seems they would rather be destructive rather than constructive, but Karma’s a wonderful thing
Barry
Hey Barry, What bad luck. It must have been a nightmare for you.
My PC got infected with 4 severe trojan viruses just over a year ago. The computer doc had my PC for 5 days to clean it up and install all sorts of safeguards to prevent getting them again only for me to get another one!
The cybercriminals apparently found a hole in the latest MS virus protector just before it was discovered and patched!
Fortunately I didn’t lose any of my data etiher time. Better luck with your new blog. It’s certainly a shame about the comments though.
Sandy Halliday recently posted..Get More Traffic To Your Blog With SEO Super Comments Plugin
Hi Sandy,
One thing I have discovered in the past couple of weeks – you’ve got to have a sense of humour, because if you didn’t laugh about these events, you would feel like crying.
It’s great you got your computer sorted, I have known some people who have had to reinstall windows completely. My son in law swears by Linux, maybe something to consider as a back-up,
Thanks for your visit and comment,
Barry
Hey Barry,
Wow mate, so sorry you had to go through this. I know what a royal pain in the rear this represents as I used to fix computers as a living (lol) but it really bothered me when I used to get my own computers infected in the past.
Being 100% complete virus free/protected would be like saying I have the absolute BEST formula for weight loss without exercise, diet or pills.
There is simply not one perfect solution because systems are dynamic, meaning that there will always be new flaws and there will always be people looking to find them.
It’s really a mouse and cat game that will never end so my best suggestion is normally what has been said already.
Always have everything up to date (operating system, apps, antivirus, etc) be extremely careful when you visit compromised sites, perform weekly backups of your entire server and the same for doing antivirus scans.
Hope you’re good to go now and that you keep your systems virus free and smoother than ever, speak soon and thanks for the story.
Sergio
PS. Here’s an idea… whenever you backup your server, you can run a scan for it in a secure environment (as in a virtual OS) if it is virus free, then just replace your latest backup and do this as part of the back up routine.
It adds a second security layer without compromising either your latest backups nor your main operating system, hope that helps!
Sergio Felix recently posted..Corbett Barr’s How to Start a Blog that Matters
Hi Sergio,
Thanks for your visit and comments. I love your idea of running a check onthe backup through a virtual OS. I have loads of live Linux cd roms knocking about, and now, thanks to you mate, I have found a use for them, apart from testing,
Barry
I thought something looked different
You know, I have ran across so many sites over the past week that are full of trojans, thankfully I have good virus software that pops up and says the site was blocked. BUT, after doing a scan of my computer 2 trojans were on my PC! Now, I know exactly where they came from, but I am not going to post here. I am not sure how your site got infected, but it really sucks that this happened to you.
Glad you got it figured out and were able to save some of your posts. You seem to have a good following, so in due time everyone’s links will be back where they were.
No need to fret over it, as this was something beyond your control.
Hope you have a better week, Barry!
Linda
Linda recently posted..Tips for Converting an Article into an eBook
Hi Linda,
these people are really annoying, and what is a laugh for them causes loads of work for everyone else. If these people set their minds to making legitimate programs, and doing some marketing, they could make an honest living.
I agree that a good antivirus program is a must, and an updated one at that, although I have seen conspiracy rumours which claim that a lot of these viruses are made by the antivirus people to ensure the longevity of their product,
thanks for your visit,
Barry