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We have been seeing this for a quite a while now.

What is happening here?

1. The web hosting is expired?

2. The account is suspended by the host for some reason (e.g. violation of the Terms of Use, server resource overusage, etc, malwares and other harmful scripts in pages)?

3. The site is hacked…again?

Well, It’s high time Kuensel considered trying a different CMS (with a new look) and seal the those web security holes.

Whatever the reason, they must at least, inform the readers of the glitches through other social media. They have not even stated reasons for the dead page on their twitter page nor on their facebook page that they have ditched since March.

Sometimes, it so happens that we encounter an error page while browsing certain sites. We are taken to Google safe browsing diagnostic site with details of the infection of that site or site related to that site.

Here is an example.

Warning! Malware detected, bhutanstudies.org.bt on Google Chrome

Malware warning on Apple Safari

So, what do we have here? It says, The website at www.bhutanstudies.org.bt contains elements from the site internetcountercheck.com, which appears to host malware – software that can hurt your computer or otherwise operate without your consent. Just visiting a site that contains malware can infect your computer. – While browsed on Google Chrome

We get the warning only while browsing on Google Chrome and Apple Safari. For some reason, Mozilla Firefox lets the page through only to alert the Anti Virus Program that a virus has been found. I did not test on Internet Explorer.

How malicious are such sites?

Well, it depends. Here’s a screenshot of Bhutan Studies site with Google safe browsing diagnostics.

Google safe browsing diagnostics for bhutanstudies.org.bt

According to diagnostics, the site appears safe. But not quite. I browsed on Firefox and Avira Antivirus was quick to warn me of the infection and immediately removed both the site along with history and all the cookies associated with bhutan studies web. How bad is the infection? According to google safe browsing data, around 6 pages are infected and as much as 38 trojan(s) are included in malicious software. Now, that’s a lot of trojans.

How did those malwares get there?

- Mostly outdated CMS, themes and plugins.

- Bug on CMS/blog software, themes, plugins

- Malicious codes that come with Premium templates/plugins that you downloaded for free.

- Brute force attack against passwords.

- Others that I don’t know…and which you may know better.

It’s always better to clean such sites as Google and other search engines will block and blacklist infected sites. Always update your site to latest CMS/themes/plugins and never use a premium theme that you downloaded for free as they contain malicious codes.

How do we clean them? For Joomla and wordpress sites, go to SUCURI.NET or click here. I think solutions for other sites are also available there.

Since Bhutan Studies is hosted on druknet, I hope it won’t spread to other sites (if hosted on a shared hosting…)

Besides WAB (as reported earlier), many other Bhutan sites seemed to be down and recovering.

The disruption was a server problem.

Along with 15 or more sites, WAB is hosted with Bhutan Hosting/Bhutan designs, a hosting reseller of Overline India, an Indian hosting company. So, the problem was from Overline India.

Bhutan Designs awarded 5 stars for a review on Overline India in June following a fantastic review at ratepoint.com.

I have been with the OverLine India for a year now. The support teams are very helpful in solving problems as and when it requires their attention. The features are excellent. The cost for the Reseller account is lowest with best features available. With latest release of cPanel and WHM, it is always good to stay ahead in web hosting industry. Keep it up! I would recommend other to join OverLine India if you have any plans to have your own web hosting company anytime in the future! – BhutanDesigns/BhutanHosting, June, 9 2010 (RatePoint).

But Bhutandesigns were clearly frustrated with Overline India’s lack of response to numerous phone calls and tweets(@bhutandesigns).

After more than three days of server woes, WAB, along with sites, are back online and everything seems to be all right.

A lesson for people looking for a good webhost? Read reviews. Lots of them. Cheap hosting, after all, is not the best alternative when you deal with lot of files and data.

It has been a couple of days since WAB site is down. At first it gave a server error, now the site is gone. Hopefully, they are re-installing the site.

WAB's site announcement at FB

It seems that the site crashed. Did they have a backups of the site? I doubt so as they are importing blog posts from networkedblogs…

To all the wordpress and other CMS users, backup your sites. For a wordpress site, the best plugin would be WP-Online backup, where you get 50 MB of free space for your uploads.

Backups. That’s the first thing you must configure while running a site to avoid hair pulling ordeals. Then the securities to ward off malwares, evil bots and hackers.

Here is a link of the wordpress online backup with tutorials.
5 Steps to Total Protection (from Backup Technology)

Step 1: Download the plugin here.

Step 2: Upload the plugin to your blog using the Plugins > Add New > Upload feature in your WordPress Dashboard.

Step 3: Register for your 50 MiB of free space on our backup portal.

Step 4: Configure your plugin to enable encryption and provide the login details of your online account by clicking Change Settings on the Tools > Online Backup page.

Step 5: Schedule your backup by clicking Change Schedule on the same page!

You can even send backups to email (manually)

I hope WAB site recovers soon…my wishes and prayers.

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Posted by admin at 7:17 am General 2 Responses »

Aug 042010

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Kuzuzangpo.com is back but the gallery and some other pages are still dead. It was nothing serious, I think. Maybe just compromised the index file.

Better update this site and look for any security holes…

This is what I got when I visited kuzuzangpo.com this afternoon. Incidentally, the site has been hacked by a leet hacker called SA H4x0r. Hope it’s nothing serious.

The security has been compromised either from the server side or kuzuzangpo.com is running on a vulnerable CMS with security holes. Either way, it’s important to backup the site and update to the latest available system.

Since kuzuzangpo.com is hosted on Druknet Hosting, I hope the other sites hosted there are secured.

Earlier, bhutan.gov.bt was also hacked by the same hacker.

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Jul 302010

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