Viruses and malware?

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StarWarsStarTrek
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Viruses and malware?

Post by StarWarsStarTrek » Sat Aug 27, 2011 5:18 pm

I'm sorry if this sounds accusational, but I suddenly got infected by floods of viruses after returning from vacation, and after going back here. Obviously you wouldn't intentionally install viruses onto here, but still, how tight is your security?

Jedi Master Spock
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Re: Viruses and malware?

Post by Jedi Master Spock » Sat Aug 27, 2011 6:03 pm

I update phpBB reasonably often, use secure passwords, and the machine I use when I'm editing site content / patching phpBB / etc is a Linux box, so it's not likely to be compromised on my end.

It's possible that my host's server could be compromised, but it's relatively unlikely, and I haven't heard of anything like that happening this year. (We use a large host, so when their servers start getting infected in numbers, it hits the blogs pretty quickly as website owners complain.)

Exploits of PHP based sites have been known to happen; the virus obtains write access on the server and inserts redirects into PHP files. If this has happened, we should have other users experiencing similar problems (or at least getting security alerts), so starting a thread here isn't a bad idea.

What browser and OS are you using?

Mike DiCenso
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Re: Viruses and malware?

Post by Mike DiCenso » Sat Aug 27, 2011 6:27 pm

In all the long years I've been visiting SFJN, I've never, ever , had any malware attack my system as a result, much less heard of anyone else complain of such a thing. For one thing, JMS does not make use of some of the more classical means that hackers exploit these days to get through, like ad banners, and we rigorously delete spambot articles as soon as we see them, and permaban the spambot. So there's not many vectors available for malware here, and we're not as heavily visited a website as some, so we're not a big target for such people to bother making a concerted effort in the first place.

I'd have to wonder if in addition to everything else JMS mentioned, have you had any suspicious updates, or visited any other websites?
-Mike

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mojo
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Re: Viruses and malware?

Post by mojo » Sun Aug 28, 2011 9:31 am

never happened to anyone except him. interesting.

where's the off button on this lying machine?

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Mr. Oragahn
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Re: Viruses and malware?

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Aug 28, 2011 2:06 pm

Flies don't go looking for foie gras.

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Praeothmin
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Re: Viruses and malware?

Post by Praeothmin » Mon Aug 29, 2011 1:15 pm

mojo, Oragahn, can you lay off the thinly veiled insults, please?

SWST, concerning your issue, I have to say the same thing as Mike:
I've never been infected here, to my knowledge, so it may be another site you've visited, or a link a friend sent you?

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Mr. Oragahn
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Re: Viruses and malware?

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Aug 30, 2011 8:37 pm

You're harsh on my truisms, Pra.

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