lichtlune 915 Posted October 20, 2015 I know it's not just me because others have commented on it before. Who runs this site? I'd like an answer to why this happens. This has been a problem for I don't know how long now. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BrenGun 2259 Posted October 20, 2015 They are already working on it, but it's a bigger problem than they have thought. 1 lichtlune reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zeus 7997 Posted October 20, 2015 They are already working on it, but it's a bigger problem than they have thought. This. Late last November/December when the website was experiencing instability, the server was hammered by a bunch of spam bots. One of them got in and left some malware on the server. Once nostalgia. and I first spotted the redirection we made moves to find it and remove it. But malware is a pain in the ass to remove. It probably has something to do with being designed to be as annoying as possible and to not be removed. Also nostalgia and I are not malware removal experts. I would remove it and it would be gone for anywhere between two hours and two weeks but inevitably it would make its way back. Many of the server updates and planned maintenance windows that we had were my attempts at getting rid of it. I went through an exhaustive list of ways to get rid of it before finally contacting IPB support a few months ago. They pointed me in the right direction, I removed it once more, and for the last three weeks I've been monitoring the server to make sure it doesn't come back anymore. The good news is that the malware hasn't come back (yet). The bad news is that the Google bots have indexed the website with the malware redirect since it took me so long to figure out how to remove it. That means that all the links that Google has of this website have the redirect attack in it. There's nothing I can do until the Google bots index the website again, which can take a few weeks to maybe a month. The workaround is to not use Google. This attack is specifically designed to redirect you from Google. Use any other search engine and you should be fine. 1 lichtlune reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lestat 2167 Posted October 20, 2015 The good news is that the malware hasn't come back (yet). The bad news is that the Google bots have indexed the website with the malware redirect since it took me so long to figure out how to remove it. That means that all the links that Google has of this website have the redirect attack in it. There's nothing I can do until the Google bots index the website again, which can take a few weeks to maybe a month. The workaround is to not use Google. This attack is specifically designed to redirect you from Google. Use any other search engine and you should be fine. I encountered another spam-filled website yesterday when I clicked on something from Google, I can't remember how old the link was though. Also, it's not only designed to attack from Google. I've also encountered it when I click on Monochrome Heaven links people send me over Facebook, for instance. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jigsaw9 6783 Posted October 20, 2015 ^ Thing is, I had people telling me the site seems fishy (i.e. showing that malware page) even if linked through Twitter for example... or maybe this is just for those who are not members here, just randomly clicking on an MH link? But anyway, yeah, hoping it'll go away soon. (Sometimes even I use Google to search for news on Mh becuz "lol the band name has less than 4 characterz") Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lichtlune 915 Posted October 20, 2015 (Sometimes even I use Google to search for news on Mh becuz "lol the band name has less than 4 characterz") Yeah I was trying to search for "-OZ-" Which is kind of what promoted me to make this thread. MH doesn't even allow me to search them for some reason. Anyway I'm glad to finally get an answer about this issue. It has bugged me for a long time. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zeus 7997 Posted October 20, 2015 Yeah I was trying to search for "-OZ-" Which is kind of what promoted me to make this thread. MH doesn't even allow me to search them for some reason. Anyway I'm glad to finally get an answer about this issue. It has bugged me for a long time. That's a different issue altogether. I explained it elsewhere but the gist of it is that search engines interpret the "-" character before a word as NOT (search query). It ends up searching for the opposite of what you wanted. That's a big part of the reason why OZ changed their name (not like OZ is any easier to find though). Also I should issue an apology. It was not my intention to keep everyone in the dark so long. I didn't want to give constant updates about the state of progress without really knowing what I was dealing with and that took a lot longer than I thought it would. The good news is that the malware is harmless. It's designed to be annoying and hard to get rid of instead of dangerous. I encountered another spam-filled website yesterday when I clicked on something from Google, I can't remember how old the link was though. Also, it's not only designed to attack from Google. I've also encountered it when I click on Monochrome Heaven links people send me over Facebook, for instance. Facebook / Twitter / other big name websites integrate with Twitter for analytics and other purposes. It's part of the reason why we stopped posting updates on the official Facebook page for a bit. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
emmny 4139 Posted October 20, 2015 i've been using MH on firefox where i have a script blocker because i was scared that this site had something on it but its good to know its just from google searches and otherwise there's not much to fear. it really deterred me when i first stumbled upon the site a year or so ago, its a shame they targeted the kind weebs of MH. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nagisa 131 Posted October 20, 2015 I searched for MH on Yahoo just now and the url shortener spam site came up. 1 Zeus reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zeus 7997 Posted October 23, 2015 I have submitted a request to Google to recrawl all the pages on this website. Let's see if that does the trick. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
