Virus at Simchic - enter at your own risk

[crechebaby]

Hi, everyone.
Just a quick update--tech support has been able to resolve the security issue we were struggling with, and it is now safe to visit once again. Thanks for being so patient, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

While talking with tech support they mentioned that there is A LOT of this going around right now, and a great deal of totally legitimate sites have been infected--so make sure your virus protection software is up to date. This is the only way to be 99.999999% protected!

Thanks again for your emails and concern. I'm so relieved to have this cleaned up and taken care of.

[Lady Moiraine]

While talking with tech support they mentioned that there is A LOT of this going around right now, and a great deal of totally legitimate sites have been infected--so make sure your virus protection software is up to date. This is the only way to be 99.999999% protected!

 Who is your host?  I remember about a year ago, IPower had a trojan on their server and was spreading the virus through all their sites on that server, my site happened to be on that server also, it was a nightmare trying to get them to realize the virus was actually coming from them.     I tried to call tech and there was like an hour wait to get through on the phone--I waited.

[BlueSoup]

Hi, everyone.
Just a quick update--tech support has been able to resolve the security issue we were struggling with, and it is now safe to visit once again. Thanks for being so patient, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

While talking with tech support they mentioned that there is A LOT of this going around right now, and a great deal of totally legitimate sites have been infected--so make sure your virus protection software is up to date. This is the only way to be 99.999999% protected!

Thanks again for your emails and concern. I'm so relieved to have this cleaned up and taken care of.

Well, your canned message is here too, so I might as well reply here as well.

First, what is a "legitimate" site?  Is it one that takes your money in exchange for a service?  Because that's you.  Or is it one that will actually take their virus-infected site offline while repairs are being made, so as to make sure their paying customers don't actually have to end up reformatting their entire computer, losing everything in the process?  Cuz I guess if that's what you mean, well, you're right. You're not a legitimate site.  And if you really did thank people for their emails, then you'd actually reply to them, wouldn't you?

[miros]

If it's coming from a trojan on the server, even putting up a "site closed due to virus" front page isn't going to do much... that page will quickly get infected and even visiting it will get you infected, so you might as well download! 

Additionally, TSR has quite a few direct links into simchic for meshes... so they'd have to redirect all traffic to the "site closed" page.  That's not a minor job for a not-super-technical webmaster!

[idtaminger]

But if you just take the entire site offline, that would do the trick, wouldn't it? I'd think taking a site offline to prevent infection would be more important than letting pple know that the site is down for repairs.

[Elven Ranger]

Bleh!!!
I just deleted the bloody link to her site ... The fact its virused ans STILL UP (or was at the time) tell's me EVERYTHING I need to know!

[BlueSoup]

Wait, so the viruses are still there?

[miros]

But if you just take the entire site offline, that would do the trick, wouldn't it? I'd think taking a site offline to prevent infection would be more important than letting pple know that the site is down for repairs.

Yes, you can brute force move your pages to a subdirectory or delete them.  Again, the webmaster may not have the skills or experience to know how to do that.  They also may not have a clean copy on their pc to restore from, so they're going to have to do a page by page cleanup.

[J. M. Pescado]

That's what you get for hosting on a WINDOZE server.

* J. M. Pescado spittoo.

WINDOZE IS NOT FOR SERVERS!

[miros]

Especially if Front Page Extensions are turned on.  Might as well hang up a sign that says "Come hack my server."