Tag: firewall

HACKED!

So around January 11th, 2018 I visted my website and was presented with:
OH NO!

I then spent the next day Googling all sorts of things. Besides how to fix it, also why or how it happened.

I found out I’d have to register my site with Google and request a review once I resolved the problem. Through various links and searches, I found that a script was the culprit.

Logging in via FTP and looking around my shared hosting directories I found that this wasn’t just limited to my site, although this was the first site that I received this MALWARE error. PHP files had been updated to load this script with the visitor unaware it was even happening.

The other sites hadn’t been kept up to date and have since become abandoned by their owners for one reason or another. Some were just banner pages that simply pointed their visitors to Facebook or somewhere else. Others had fully blown installations with hopes of a bright future employing all sort of bells and whistles that third-party plugins provide, although left untouched with no updates applied.

So the sites that were beyond an easy quick fix, I simply deleted them. I put HTML Pages in their place. I decided I would only leave those installations that were being maintained on the server. Why have a full-blown CMS run a simple one-page site? The files that had been altered could have been anywhere and my goal was to repair mine and prevent it from just happening again.

So, the sites I myself maintain and monitor have been fixed, updated and protected. If yours was one of those that I replaced with simple HTML, now you know why.

Sometimes I cause my own problems … really!

A quick update to let you know how Andy Reid and I are alike … I’ve goofed.

Number 1: I thought the Internet was slow from the new connection and called service to have it diagnosed.  All the while placing the blame on them, it was I who had coded in the firewall rules the throttling for the old T1.  After I changed the values to reflect the much higher speed that is now available, lo and behold it smokes now.

Number 2: While poking in the firewall I started thinking about my Verizon woes again and decided to try to tackle this once again since this problem of not being able to connect has plagued me through 3 or 4 Internet connections.  For the first time I was able to connect through my connection, but not through my firewall.  With my firewall “opened up” for the mail server, it still will not work over the bridge.  I can telnet to hotmail perfectly fine and then in the very next command watch telnet time-out to Verizon.net.  I feel that I’m closer to a solution though as I now have something to go by and it’s been my fault all along.  So I should take down my “Verizon Sucks” post?

Number 3: The post that’s gotten the most comments here was about the Mac and the Self Assigned IP.  While not everyone has used my solution, they’re thanking me for the posting of someone else’s solution.  That’s fine.  Since my solution was a Belkin router, when I started to move things over to the new location I bought the very same router.  Shortly into my Internet usage, the wireless signal would be lost after a certain amount of time.  Not the IP problem, just connectivity.  Weird.  I made sure that the configurations were the same with original router and this new one.  They were.  I couldn’t figure it out, so I hard-wired and it’s been that way ever since.  For some reason I went in the router recently and noticed the Firmware Update.  It was two releases behind.  I upgraded the firmware, popped out the network cables and have been wireless ever since.  Did the newer router come purchased with an older firmware?  I won’t know until I check  the old router, but if I were a betting man …

You learn something new everyday.  I’m not entirely opposed to admitting when I’ve done something wrong, but I sure thought in the first two cases that I was right.  The last here is an honest mistake I think …  What say you?