Recently, one of our clients’ website had been hacked and injected some malware scripts, that essentially took down the entire website and was blacklisted by Google. See example. As noted on Oliverf’s blog, he states:
Several browsers use data from Google’s malware list to protect users. Firefox 3, Chrome and Safari all check sites that users are visiting against Google’s list and warn users if they are about to visit a dangerous site. There are some small differences in implementation across browsers that can cause confusion.
All three browsers check the address of the top-level page a user is navigating to. That protects most users in most cases. But, a web page can include content from another web page and if the included content is malicious then users may be exposed. Chrome (and Safari*) check every request against Google’s malware list. This means those browsers will protect users even if malicious content from a flagged page is embedded on a non-flagged page.
In the case of our clients’ website, she was running a non-updated version of WordPress with a vulerable htaccess file and open permissions i.e. 777.
In the case of a compromised website, you should follow these steps.
Change all the passwords including FTP, database and access to control panels
Back up the data
Find the badware and get rid of it, see link at StopBadWare.org
If that reference didn’t work, Media Temple has some great documentation. Ref. Wiki Media Temple
Once you are 100% sure you’ve cleaned up all the junk, set up a Google Webmaster Tools account and request that the site be reviewed by Google to “de-list” your nasty website. Ref. Wiki Media Temple
This coming weekend Original Fake will release their latest collaboration with New Era. Together they present the 8P “XX” cap, which comes in two grey wool colorways.
Digg.com recently went through a design update with their website, and it looks like they’re running into a few bumps in the road. I would just like to remind people that testing is a vital part of web design, but if you don’t give enough lead time to do the proper tests you’re going to run into a lot of problems. Just think of the variables out there that exist for your lowly web programmer, and these are only the most popular ones and not the 1% usage ones:
IE8
IE7
IE6, and as much as we would like to kill it, with companies like Ford, Disney and Toyota still running it, its pretty hard to escape.
Firefox
Safari
Chrome
iPhone
Android
Javascript
Flash
Bandwidth
1024×768 Monitors
1920×1440 Monitors
Beyond web programming there are plenty of other things that can affect the uptime of your website.
Meet the newest transplants to the LA Street Art scene; Dabs N’ Myla. Direct from Melbourne, Australia; “Gettin’ Busy, Gettin Paid, in the City of LA”.
In July, Dabs and Myla brought their incredible talents to the LA Freewalls Project in DTLA. We were there to capture the action and catch them in the act… The LA Freewalls Project is sponsored by Lahoda Fine Arts and www.jetsetgraffiti.com
In this new artist profile of the incredible Australian Duo, we talk about Earthquakes, Street Art vs. Graffiti, and their favorite food, Vegemite! (It’s actually not that bad).
Catch Dabs N’ Myla at their upcoming show at Thinkspace Gallery in Culver City, Los Angeles from September 3rd-24th. Don’t miss it!
The earthquake footage was purely a fluke. What a weird coincidence to be in the middle of filming an interview and the world starts shaking!
For some reason, corn somehow sneaks its way into an argumentative debate. The questionable High Fructose Corn Syrup artificial sweetener that is practically on the list of every ingredient summary on the shelf of many grocery stores boggles the average person’s mind. The three main controversial topics about High Fructose Corn Syrup suggested that High Fructose Corn Syrup is bad; High Fructose Corn Syrup is the cause of obesity; and High Fructose Corn Syrup is addictive. These accusations are just hasty generalizations because the naïve population will absorb and believe anything the media portrays. This awesome post will explain both topics about the hasty generalizations of the different usages of corn and the truth behind them. Read the rest of this entry »
Yahoo! Fantasy Sports is one of the biggest if not the biggest free online Fantasy Sports websites on this planet. This season for Salary Cap Football they’ve moved away from hosting it on their own website and moved the entire system onto Facebook. While this sounds like the signs of the times, this maybe well indeed backfire on them. The idea on paper is perfect; get social by implementing the game on Facebook and let the people play with all their friends! Too bad this may be a lack of foresight with the fantasy community.
I think there are a few fall backs to this new plan:
1. Fantasy sports is a time tested game of knowledge, stats, and a whole lot of luck. These games were once played with the newspaper and notepad the next day by adding up scores by hand. That also means that a lot of the older generation plays these games, and i’m pretty sure a majority of players of yesteryear don’t have a facebook account and care even less to create one.
In this series Erika showcases a number of portraits of musicians made out of recycled cassette tape with original cassettes. Also included are portraits made from old film and reels. The idea comes from a phrase (ironically) coined by philosopher Gilbert Ryle, a description of how your spirit lives in your body. Erika imagines we are all, like cassettes, thoughts wrapped up in awkward packaging.
We’ll let you know the details as we get closer to September, but in the mean time don’t come by the office its a mess. Unless you want to then bring some beer.
