I Do Not Sell Cialis or Viagra… Damn Hackers!
| Share |
I have some php gurus (hacker specialists) working with me to get this figured out but for the last few months johncow.com has been kicking ass in the search engines for “cialis” and “viagra”…. the problem is I don’t want to be.
Some ass (yes you are) hacked into my wordpress a few months ago and I have done numerous things to stop and prevent but the person is relentless. I was made aware of this initially by Andy Beard … who was stalking me again 
and since then have tried over and over again (ensuring permissions are correct and a proper htaccess is set up and so on) but still issues persist.
So i have finally hired a hacker specialists (kind of like hiring an assassin as a body guard I guess) to look into this and for the past few days has been researching and digging in and getting to the bottom of this.
I plan on posting what he finds, so that others can prevent this annoying thing from happening.
The biggest thing right now however is go to Google and enter “site:yourdomain.com viagra” (without the quotes) and see what results show up.
If you are hacked (or even if you are not hacked), Matt Cutts has a good post at…
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/three-tips-to-protect-your-wordpress-installation/
…This did not solve the issue for me but it is a good thing to do with your blogs anyway and it might be of better help to you then it was to me.
Here is another post at SEOBook… for a bit of a different issue but still worthwhile to look at…
http://www.seobook.com/wordpress-blog-hacking-checklist
Soooo…. no i don’t sell Cialis and or Viagra at Johncow and thankfully I have not yet become in need of such help (keeping fingers crossed).
I will keep you all updated on this (the hacking not the need for cialis help) and hopefully can offer help to anyone else out there that has fell victim to a hacking.
I’ve also had the unpleasant experience of having to deal with a hacked site. Reall annoying.
I wonder what it is about Cialis and Viagra that makes them such favourites for all kinds of spam.
Also: Way to get more traffic for those terms by creating some on-page content for them.
Cheers,
Shane
Dang it Jason! And here I was coming to your site to get that blue – colored pill…
Oh wait, that was an Aleve.
Understandable mistake
Woooo .. havent been here for a quite while and now i get to see your real picture. Don’t think a pretty face like that would need Viagra .. lolz.
Hmmm…. thanks (blushing a bit)
I had the same thing on and off for about 6 months only with my site they were nailing the p*rn market.
Ended up securing my hosting and then 301′ing the porn traffic for a price
lol… good that you made it work for you and I am glad my issue is not porn.
Getting hacked is a successful bloggers rite of passage. You should be pissed and honored. I hope to one day join your ranks. But, I may just have to hack my own site to make it happen.
Hmmm… not sure a rite of passage I like… but it is ensuring that i do things different from now on.
Why would anyone hack into a site to sell viagra!
Because if a site has a lot of authority with Google the info ranks well and can make them money.
so they like placing a affiliate link on your page? can you track down who’s the affiliate?
Did all that and even email their hosting provider. Problem is most of this is done from people outside our legal “can do anything to them anyway” zone.
I had that same thing happen to me. It was so bad that they started sending emails to me with my own website address for viagra and online prescriptions. I had to dump the entire site because of the amount of spam that was being sent out from it. To make it even worse, I was a newbie, had the site with Yahoo and they were absolutely worthless. No help whatsoever! That was a hard lesson to learn.
I had the same issue on JoeTech.com. After realizing it, I sat down over the weekend and used my cleanup process as an opportunity to upgrade any plugins, remove old plugins, add a couple new ones and just generally clean up lots of SEO things (all new URLs).
It was a pain, but now my blog is so much better than before it ever happened, IMO.
Interesting, I had noticed that regarding your domain awhile ago too, now it makes sense. Initially I thought it was strange, but that perhaps you had a campaign promoting one of these things:) Certainly interested in seeing your post on what you learn and how you solve the problem.
Cheers,
Jeromy
My gmail site got hacked with the same thing this morning!
This is not uncommon, not a week goes by that I don’t hear from a new client who’s wordpress blog been hacked.
There are so many easy things you can do to protect yourself:
1. remove your admin account and replace it with a new one that has been assigned admin priveleges. Hackers target admin – because every wordpress blog by default has it
2. change your database tables from the default wp_ to something else – hackers rely on every wordpress structure being the same
3. update wordpress and all plugins on a regular basis
4. make your passwords strong passwords 12 characters or more, and change them every 30-60 days
6. don’t use the same password for your WP login, database, and hosting account – it’s just too easy to get hacked
7. move your config.php file for WP outside of the public html root if you can – WP is setup by default to find it one to two levels above the root
8. place an .htaccess file in your wp-content/uploads folder limiting uploads to graphics files
9. check your file and folder permissions
10. modify your .htaccess file in the root to limit access to the config.php file to be read by WP only
11. add the login lockdown plugin to limit login attempts to 3 times only (and log IP addresses)
12. try some other wordpress security plugins like wordpress firewall, wp antivirus, wp security scan, or secure wordpress
13. use only secure (encrypted) FTP or SFTP to connect to your web site and transfer files
14. do not connect to your wordpress admin dashboard in public places and use wifi – anyone can sniff your password
I learned all these things the hard way, and I try to educate people whenever possible about how simple wordpress security can be.
The details of all the steps I just went over (and more) can be found in my completely free WordPress Security Guide (no strings attached):
http://www.jtpratt.com/series/wordpress-security-guide/
I can help you with your web site problem. I can track down the offending code and remove it, change all your passwords, and install IDS intrusion detection system. email me.
Ho ho ho that same thing happened to my Yahoo mailing list…what a nightmare! Best of luck to ya with that.
ch
Hey that happened to me too. It’s just sad…..good luck!
ch
awww……where should I get my meds now! LOL
Lol, Johncow ranking 6th for “viagra pill”
. Well I know its annoying for you, but you got to admit there is some humour too it 
. Anyway good luck to you about solving the issue.
hmm..Yes, I have seen that kind of hack many times..
I think this thread at Google webmaster forum could help:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=2bb823d5af6173a0&hl=en
Here I thought you were deciding to get into a niche market with your blog. I’m glad your getting it all taken care of best of luck to you and thank you for those useful links I’m going to start implementing those strategies to my blogs as well.
Those Viagra / Cialis / Porn guys are the most blackhat and spammy bunch on the net. They are also the most aggressive affiliates because they do not give a damn about branding themselves, reviews, image and stuff like that. They hacked my site several times and I managed to get their footprints out on my own (with my low-tech skills). Once Howie Schwartz followed these guys to find out where they place their links on the net and came up with some interesting web 2.0 traffic sites…..