If any of you have attempted to access a page on my website at sq7.org over the past week or so, you've probably run into a red page warning you that "This is a potential attack site".

This is because some jerk* (or jerks) hacked into my website and inserted some script into every HTML file designed to redirect the viewer to a malicious webpage. Attempts to delete the script were futile, because they would reappear soon afterwards.

I contacted the man who owned the SQ7.org domain about this problem, and he asked if I had any PHP files on my site. Apparently PHP files with outdated, obsolete coding can contribute to a security breach, and since I did find one old, unused PHP file on my site that was part of an experiment to create a randomized avatar on a message board, that must have been what happened.

I deleted that file and cleaned up all my HTML files, only to discover the next day that a new line of script had been added to redirect the viewer to a site that automatically installs a Trojan onto the viewer's computer. I found this out the hard way when I visited my homepage, and despite Spy Sweeper's best efforts, found a piece of phony anti-spyware software on my computer when I restarted it.

Fortunately, I was able to delete this Trojan with surprisingly little trouble, and now that I've finally had my FTP password changed (probably the very first thing I should have had done, in retrospect), my website seems to be clean now. I hope no one else encountered any problems as a result of visiting my website, and I sincerely apologize to anyone who did.

*sigh*...Hackers like this make me lose a little of my faith in humanity.

EDIT: And it looks like I spoke too soon about my site being completely clean.


*There are a lot of other derogatory terms I could have used to describe this person, but I settled for the most innocuous one.

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