State Of The Site as of July 2014
Fri Jul 18, 2014 10:42 am
Hello all, I just wanted to take a moment and thank everyone for there continued support for the site. It means a great deal to me and it will allow for some interesting projects in the future.
Now the news... We got hit by hackers last week. It was superficially a very light hit, just a code injection in an old bit of javascript that caused an partial redirect. It was not a malicious code but an attempt to steal traffic away from the site. However, this had major ramifications. The site is supported mainly in two ways, voluntary subscriptions and advertisements (i prefer the former over that later but there are only about a score of subscribers right now). This helps keep the lights on and pay for software and whatnot. Well this attack resulted in 98% of the ads being pulled. As you can imagine this is a huge blow. Luckily the attack was limited and I quickly called in an air strike. As I was at work at the time the initial response was drastic and complete. That section of the site no longer exists and will return a 404 error if you were to visit it. I then spent about 12 hours doing a crude purge of old javascript code on the remainder of the site. This left a huge area of the site ugly but functional. Thankfully I have been spending the last year going through the site and updating code so I only have about 20% left to deal with (this is still around 25,000+ files) and I will be plugging away updating the code and making it functional again. Once that is done I can focus on the more interesting parts of the site and will be able to participate more in the forums. The upgrade to WRG4.0 is a huge undertaking that has taken on a new urgency after this attack. I know some of you webmasters out there can feel my pain.
Once again I appreciate the understanding and support. Without it this site wouldn't be possible.
Now the news... We got hit by hackers last week. It was superficially a very light hit, just a code injection in an old bit of javascript that caused an partial redirect. It was not a malicious code but an attempt to steal traffic away from the site. However, this had major ramifications. The site is supported mainly in two ways, voluntary subscriptions and advertisements (i prefer the former over that later but there are only about a score of subscribers right now). This helps keep the lights on and pay for software and whatnot. Well this attack resulted in 98% of the ads being pulled. As you can imagine this is a huge blow. Luckily the attack was limited and I quickly called in an air strike. As I was at work at the time the initial response was drastic and complete. That section of the site no longer exists and will return a 404 error if you were to visit it. I then spent about 12 hours doing a crude purge of old javascript code on the remainder of the site. This left a huge area of the site ugly but functional. Thankfully I have been spending the last year going through the site and updating code so I only have about 20% left to deal with (this is still around 25,000+ files) and I will be plugging away updating the code and making it functional again. Once that is done I can focus on the more interesting parts of the site and will be able to participate more in the forums. The upgrade to WRG4.0 is a huge undertaking that has taken on a new urgency after this attack. I know some of you webmasters out there can feel my pain.
Once again I appreciate the understanding and support. Without it this site wouldn't be possible.
Re: State Of The Site as of July 2014
Fri Jul 18, 2014 11:34 am
Scott
Gald to hear your recovery is going well
Thank you for all your efforts in keeping WIX intact and in great shape
Your dedication is greatly appreciated by many many of us !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
p.s. Party at Oshkosh this year ?
Gald to hear your recovery is going well
Thank you for all your efforts in keeping WIX intact and in great shape
Your dedication is greatly appreciated by many many of us !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
p.s. Party at Oshkosh this year ?
Re: State Of The Site as of July 2014
Fri Jul 18, 2014 2:58 pm
Scott,
I'm not a computer
or website for that matter. However I know when I've had issues with my computer I can go back in history and reset the computer to what is was prior to the error, bug, malware or virus. That normally solves the problems I've had. Can that also be done to a website to get rid of the damage done by an attack?
John
I'm not a computer
or website for that matter. However I know when I've had issues with my computer I can go back in history and reset the computer to what is was prior to the error, bug, malware or virus. That normally solves the problems I've had. Can that also be done to a website to get rid of the damage done by an attack?John
Re: State Of The Site as of July 2014
Sun Jul 20, 2014 12:18 pm
CoastieJohn wrote:Scott,
I'm not a computer
John
Hi John,
That depends on what comprised the attack and where it was directed at. In this case the attack did little damage but the external ramifications were much bigger. I eliminated the damage quickly but solving the other issues took time and luckily were resolved.