{"id":2703,"date":"2013-04-19T18:32:43","date_gmt":"2013-04-19T23:32:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/?p=2703"},"modified":"2013-04-19T18:32:43","modified_gmt":"2013-04-19T23:32:43","slug":"little-absences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/acknowledgements\/little-absences\/","title":{"rendered":"Little absences."},"content":{"rendered":"

My twitter followers may have noticed I\u2019ve been gone for a couple of days. The reason is that I needed to clean up an infection on my website by a nasty little rascal called the \u201cPharma Hack<\/a>\u201d. What this misguided piece of malware does, is inject hidden information into pages and posts that contain links back to websites selling various drugs \u2013 thus the name \u201cPharma\u201d.<\/p>\n

The information is hidden from website visitors and serves the nefarious purpose of \u201cSearch Engine Optimization\u201d. In the past, search engines such as Google ranked websites higher the more sites that linked to them. Therefore, by embedding links into pages these cheaters are attempting to increase the ranking of disreputable websites. Reputable search engines are well aware of this \u201ctrick\u201d and now either disregard hidden links, or penalize websites for including them or being linked by them.<\/p>\n

As I have no desire for people in desperate need of {how to put this delicately\u2026} \u201chardening\u201d drugs visiting my site, I don\u2019t mind being penalized. You know the variety I mean, those alchemical marvels that transform certain body parts into hardened steel {if the transmutation lasts longer than four hours, call your doctor\u2026}!<\/p>\n

And now, to the title of the post. I discovered my site had been \u201chacked\u201d thanks only to the efforts of an amazing person that many on Twitter know as @TwitCleaner<\/a> \u2013 a now defunct product written by a real life human being named Si Dawson. Si responded to a tweet I made offering him free copies of my works, as I\u2019m financially unable to make cash donations {if you\u2019re able to, please visit his website<\/a> \u2013 there\u2019s a \u201ccontribute\u201d button over on the right}. In taking me up on my offer, Si visited [Reviewers]<\/a> to get my email address \u2013 he noticed the infection, and took time to inform and assist me in identifying it. Thank you again Si, A.K.A @TwitCleaner<\/a> \u2013 your actions helped me, and did a lot to restore my ever-dwindling faith in the goodness of individuals.<\/p>\n

Anyway, to cut a long story short, cleaning up the infection<\/a> took a ton of time I really don\u2019t have, and the only pot from which I could pull the time, was Twitter\u2026<\/p>\n

{P.S. if you\u2019re a book reviewer or blogger please visit the link above \u2013 I\u2019d love to hear from you.}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My twitter followers may have noticed I\u2019ve been gone for a couple of days. The reason is that I needed to clean up an infection on my website by a nasty little rascal called the \u201cPharma Hack\u201d. What this misguided piece of malware does, is inject hidden information into pages and posts that contain links […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[13,247,312,313,357,374,463],"class_list":["post-2703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-acknowledgements","category-general","tag-twitcleaner","tag-malware","tag-pharma","tag-pharma-hack","tag-reviewers","tag-seo-hack","tag-wordpress-hack"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2703\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}