Sister Claire Got Hacked

[Rob]

For those of you who frequent the site (like me) you probably got a virus warning today for Sister Claire.

As it turns out Yamino just Twittered that her site was hacked.

She's been at it for hors fixing the damage and updating her software.

Her CMS? Wordpress & Comicpress.

It's happening more and more often unfortunately. Yamino if you ever get out from under this you might want to talk to one of our CMS makers (DrBlkKnight or Dragonpowered) about perhaps getting away from Wordpress/Comicpress. It might make you less vulnerable.

Either way I hope you get it worked out.  ;D

[Dr. BlkKnight]

It's kinda what happens when one solution becomes the dominating one.

[JGray]

Indeed. I have a friend who insists Macs never get viruses. I have to tell her they do, just fewer because people always go after the bigger dog first.

[ran]

She said in her deviantart journal that she'd been using an out of date version,  and I got the picture that she suspected that that might have been why she was so vulnerable.

[NoahRodenbeek]

I hope she tells us what she finds out!

[JGray]

She says that there was a vulnerability and it got exploited. She seems hopeful that the upgrades done to the site will prevent the problem from occuring again. All seems well for now.

[amanda]

Seems like there is a lot of that going around, to be sure.  In possibly related but probably not news, three of my friend's email accounts were hacked today.

[Funderbunk]

Again, apparently. That's horrible. That really sucks for her.

[Yamino]

Augh! So, the mess is over.  It turns out that I was just one of many people hacked in the same way.

Specifically, they targeted Wordpress installs hosted on GoDaddy. The problem wasn't that I was on Wordpress/Comicpress, but that I was on Godaddy, which apparently uses extremely out of date technology.  If I hadn't just paid for an upgrade, I'd be switching right now. But my low funds mean I'm stuck with them for at least another year.

I appreciate everyone who told me about the problem (the malware was designed to be hard for the hosts to notice) and everyone who offered help.  With the aid of my techie friends, we finally managed to fix the problem.

While I am very happy that people are working on alternatives to comicpress, (it's always good to have choices) I don't see myself switching anytime soon.  It's very convenient for me, and I enjoy the very high level of customization and widgets I can use.  =)

[Rob]

While I am very happy that people are working on alternatives to comicpress, (it's always good to have choices) I don't see myself switching anytime soon.  It's very convenient for me, and I enjoy the very high level of customization and widgets I can use.  =)

Even in light of the fact that it's not going to be updated ever again?

[Yamino]

Oh, it will be. I hear there's already a Wordpress 3.0 in the works.

I have to be honest, now.  While I greatly appreciate the efforts of people making alternatives to Comicpress (because I do believe it's important work) one of the issues I've had with the alternatives I've seen so far is that not only are they incompatible with any widgets I'd need to use, they are also extremely limiting as far as appearance.  I'm very anal about what I want my comic page to look like, and a publishing platform with just two color themes isn't going to cut it for me.  I need to have a level of customization.

And even though I did get hacked, I had a team of experts available 24/7 to help me fix the problem.  That's also a big plus.

Up till now, I haven't had any problems, and as I said, it was more an issue of my host than the Wordpress/comicpress setup. Everything on my server that had php files was infected (including my php forum and gallery).  So even if I had been running one of these alternative webcomic publishers, the same issue would have come up.

[NoahRodenbeek]

awesome post, Yamino!

[Dr. BlkKnight]

Well, I know I sent you an e-mail about my system (which you never responded to).

Comic Reef may be lacking in widgets and such, but it was designed around full customization and writing your own html/CSS code.

[JGray]

That is a little out of left field, Yam. Both BK's platform and Dragonpower have full customization. Something you know because you were there step by step as I redesigned MotA.

[D.Z.]

Oy, this explains that.

I'm glad at least one of my three virus checkers spazzed out and nailed the sucker with some Nun-Fu.  ;)