Ecphorizer site hacked c. June 14, 2010

In keeping its database for online searches up to date, Google does some automated site inspections to, among other things, detect the presence of malware on destination sites.  When suspicious matter is detected on a site, Google flags the site and browsers such as Safari will check Google's suspicious site index.  If a site is flagged as suspicious, the browser will throw up a warning similar to the one shown below.  Of course visitors are given the choice of entering at their own risk or to quietly move away.

When it was pointed out to me that The Ecphorizer had been flagged, I sought the advice of various people who know a lot more about such things than I.

It appears that a common way of hacking a site is to post comments that contain a hidden script that will execute and add malicious stuff to other pages on the site, resulting in being picked up by Google, and visitors receiving the Warning image.

Changes to The Ecphorizer - June 17, 2010

Having further picked up these hidden scripts on several pages, I decided to fix things via the Brute Force Method.  This was simply to delete the entire site and upload everything from a backup made several months ago.  An unfortunate side effect of this is that the "Most Popular" count was also reverted to that from the backup.

Also, and in self-defense, I have removed the capability to create a comment account and concomitantly to remove all comments from the site.  Thus, visitors will no longer be able to create an account or to log in and leave a comment for an article.

I'm sorry that such draconian measures had to be taken but my first duty is to provide a pleasant browsing experience for my visitors. [To that end you'll not find any advertising  or any  of those annoying badges for Facebook, Readdit, Delicious, etc. on this site.]