I feel violated. But only a bit as it was bound to happen at some point. Thanks to a comment I discovered today that my site had been hacked. More specifically my WordPress installation. At the bottom of each page, hidden using CSS, were a whole load of links to Viagra-style sites.
If you want to check your blog (and it’s worth doing as Google et al penalize sites that hide links like this, not to mention that you’re rewarding the wankers who do this shit) either view the source or switch off the styles in your browser. If you don’t see anything untoward then you’re okay.
If you do, and you’re running WordPress, have a look in the “Footer” module for a bit of code which I did make a copy of but have now lost… Suffice to say it wasn’t obviously evil. Once you’ve figured it out, delete it and everything should be fine.
And then change your password. In fact change your password right now.
F&^king bastards.
Fortunately my site isn’t editable from the WP dashboard, I do it via ftp. But still. Thanks for letting us know, Pete.
*changes passwords*
To do a sort of Time Machine for WordPress, just install this plugin http://www.ilfilosofo.com/blog/2007/01/22/wordpress-database-backup-re-release-version-20/
Get a GMail account and then do an hourly backup emailed to Gmail. So if your database it lost you have an full backfrom from the time it went down.
I had something like that in the footer of my site, too, but with links to mobile ringtone sites. It actually turned out not to be a hack of WP but something that had snuck in with a gallery plugin I’d uploaded to my server to try out. When I tried to delete the directory it was in, the permissions had been changed so it couldn’t be deleted. It’s worth checking out any plugins or apps on your server which you don’t use in case they’re the culprits.
Yeah, it’s super-common to see templates that have built in keyword links stuck in there so someone, somewhere can receive the boost in Google.
It’s a nasty, dirty, black-hat trick that I’d like to see go far away. Preferably to Greenland.
Pete – sorry to hear this but thanks for the post. I too use WP on my blog.