Viruses are gone! Please return to this site!

Post by **Winston** » April 3rd, 2009, 8:45 am

Hi all,
After several complaints that my site and forum were infected by malicious scripts that redirected users to sites with viruses, I conducted some investigations and inquiries. I scanned my forum files, found nothing, and contacted my advertisers and webhost company. One of my advertisers, Clicksor, found the infected ad and stopped it from running. And my webhost Godaddy said they found no malicious scripts but that one of the ads did contain a virus before.

Thus my site appears to be ok now and virus free. So feel free to return to my site and forum again. Just to be safe though, I've changed my FTP password just in case.

Here are the letters below from Clicksor and Godaddy:

Clicksor:

Hi Winston,

Advertiser Team has worked very hard on remove any violated ads in our network. We have taken prompt action to protect our publishers and our network by locating and suspended the virus ads as soon as possible. Our Advertiser Team is well aware of the situation and has taken more precautionary steps when reviewing and accepting new advertisers. This is but one of several new joint measures between our Advertiser and Publisher Team to ensure the safety of not only your users, but also to help maintain our networkâ€™s integrity.

However, after investigation, we found that the recent virus ad is came from one of our partners. As such, we have paused their ads immediately and inform them to resolve the problem. Please feel free to place our ad code to your website again.

Clicksor values the reputation that we have with our Publishers. We sincerely apologize for the unfortunate circumstances this may have caused you.
Please let me know when you start using our ad again, and I will monitor the account for you.

Best regards,

Godaddy:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for contacting Hosting Support.

We have gone through the logs there doesn't appear to be any sign
of malicious traffic or script injections. Nor does there appear to be
any FTP activity except from your location. What does appear to be
the case is that the actual adds that were on the site were causing the
redirect (which appears to of stopped now). Currently we can go to the
site without any issues or re-direction or any signs of malicious
behavior.

Please contact us if you have any further issues.

Regards,
Wayne C.,

Hosting Support

icarus · Post by **icarus** » April 5th, 2009, 6:37 pm

It appears to be back with a vengeance. I had yet to be redirected to the infamous red warning page, but now I can hardly click anywhere on the site without it happening.

jamesbond · Post by **jamesbond** » April 6th, 2009, 5:50 am

It has happened again when I have clicked on any of the topics on the forum, the virus must be back!

Mr S · Post by **Mr S** » April 6th, 2009, 8:41 pm

Buy an Apple computer and you won't have to deal with all this virus bullshit! I switched a couple years ago and I'm never going back to PC's again, unless out of necessity.

jamesbond · Post by **jamesbond** » April 11th, 2009, 4:00 am

The virus is back! This needs to get fixed asap! When I clicked on "posts since last visit" I was redirected to another site that is trying to attach viruses to my computer files! This only happens when I am on this site. This seems to be an ongoing problem!

Post by **Winston** » April 12th, 2009, 10:49 am

Mr S wrote:Buy an Apple computer and you won't have to deal with all this virus bullshit! I switched a couple years ago and I'm never going back to PC's again, unless out of necessity.

Apples vs PC's have nothing to do with this problem. The virus comes from the clicksor ads. Just give me the URL that these trojans are sending you to, and clicksor will ban them immediately.

I wish they would review their ads before approving them. Sheesh.

Sorry I've been away for a week traveling around Taiwan and meeting some friends from the internet and couchsurfing/hospitality sites. I met a lot of wonderful people who are very open minded, rather than strict, closed and set in their ways like most of my family is.

Mr S · Post by **Mr S** » April 12th, 2009, 11:38 pm

It does if websites can't control their virus problems as PC's for the foreseeable future will continue to be bombarded with all kinds of viruses, hacks, trojans, slow processing speeds and overall shitty operating software. Having a Mac alleviates these issues considerably as whatever is attacking PC's on this site do not affect my computer one bit...

Post by **Winston** » April 13th, 2009, 2:00 am

Mr S wrote:It does if websites can't control their virus problems as PC's for the foreseeable future will continue to be bombarded with all kinds of viruses, hacks, trojans, slow processing speeds and overall shitty operating software. Having a Mac alleviates these issues considerably as whatever is attacking PC's on this site do not affect my computer one bit...

W: Probably most viruses were designed for PC's not MAC's. But it's still best to eliminate these viruses so that PC's aren't affected either.

I never understood why people create these viruses? What benefit or gain do they derive from it? They must be sickos.

Post by **Winston** » April 14th, 2009, 6:02 am

Hi folks,
I just got an update from godaddy and clicksor on the virus problem investigation. Here are their updates:

Clicksor:

"Hi Winston,

Our Advertiser Team always call to verify the account information when accepting new advertiser. And review every campaigns before approving it. However, there's advertiser has inserted the virus after the campaigns are approved. As so, our Advertiser Team keep scanning the active campaigns on a regular basis to keep our ads clean.

By reviewing our active campaigns, we do not have http://scanner.av1-best-click.info/ in our advertiser's database. We suspect that the virus ad came from our partner and we are investigating about this issue.

I will contact you once we located the ad.

Thank you for your patient!

Regards,"

--------------------------------------------------

Godaddy:

"Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for contacting Hosting Support.

We are unable to find any malicious content in your site. The logs show no evidence of anyone other than you uploading files, and there is also no evidence of any type of http injection. You do have some links for banner ads, so it is possible that you may be getting ads that redirect visitors.

Please contact us if you have any further issues.

Regards,

Heather P.
Hosting Support"

Post by **Winston** » April 14th, 2009, 6:03 am

So anyway, if there are trojans or you're being redirected to another site, please give that site's URL!

Grunt · Post by **Grunt** » April 15th, 2009, 5:54 am

I thought you said I was a crazed paranoid lunatic for saying there was a problem with the webpage?

Post by **Winston** » April 15th, 2009, 6:57 am

Grunt wrote:I thought you said I was a crazed paranoid lunatic for saying there was a problem with the webpage?

W: No I said you were a lunatic for claiming that I infected this website with viruses deliberately on purpose! What kind of a fuckup would say or think that?! If your words earlier came out wrong, then you should apologize for your false accusatory language, which was without basis completely.

Grunt · Post by **Grunt** » April 16th, 2009, 7:06 am

Wrong.

You should apologize for allowing, through intent or incompetence, the infection of our computers as a direct result of your desire to feather your own nest.

Cookies, dodgy or not, are a fact of life. Rampant and uncontrollable redirects, pop-ups and cold hard malicious code are quite another.

Ive never seen this level of buffoonery at the-niceguy, americanwomensuck, mangosauce, stickman, not-stickman, or ANY other mens rights related forum.

Congrats!

Post by **Winston** » April 17th, 2009, 4:15 am

Grunt wrote:Wrong.

You should apologize for allowing, through intent or incompetence, the infection of our computers as a direct result of your desire to feather your own nest.

Cookies, dodgy or not, are a fact of life. Rampant and uncontrollable redirects, pop-ups and cold hard malicious code are quite another.

Ive never seen this level of buffoonery at the-niceguy, americanwomensuck, mangosauce, stickman, not-stickman, or ANY other mens rights related forum.

Congrats!

W: So what about your apology for insinuating that I deliberately placed viruses on this site?! Do you retract that?

I told you, I have no control over the viruses from the clicksor ads. That is clicksor's job to take care of it. I have done all I can. I contacted them, IDed one of the virus ads and got it suspended, and contacted my webhost as well. I did everything in my power to try to stop it. What more could I have done that I didn't?

You aren't making sense again. Or your head is not clear or logical.

Post by **Winston** » April 22nd, 2009, 4:42 am

From Clicksor. They found the infected ad campaign and suspended it.

"Hi Winston,

After investigation, our Advertiser Team has located the violated campaign and it has been suspended immediately.

Please feel free to try our ad code on a test page.

Let me know if you need further assistance.

Regards."

Viruses are gone! Please return to this site!

Viruses are gone! Please return to this site!

Really?