blog_post_computer_hate

Late yesterday afternoon TTAG was hit by a malware attack. Thanks to some quick work by our ad partner Lanista Concepts along with un-named drones somewhere deep within the Google monolith, all has been restored to normal. Now comes the post mortem process in which we figure out if we were victimized by some malicious ad code or whether a banned commenter who tried to take credit for causing our difficulties is about to hear from our attorneys. In any case, we regret the downtime and thank you for your continued readership, support and patronage.

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75 COMMENTS

  1. Patience? You do all the work and we amuse ourselves with our pithy, witty and insightful comments. Thanks.

    • I did enjoy seeing some increasingly demanding, panicked “Fix It!” commands. I guess TTAG plays a more central role in some people’s lives than others. But, THANK YOU to the TTAG staff for getting on it in very short order.

      • I was taking a nap last night, and woke up at about 2050 to 54 emails from the previous 2 hours letting us know about the issue. By midnight, we had received well over 100 “fyi” emails. Cheers to having an involved readership.

  2. Sorry TTAG was attacked. Probably won’t be the last time. Lots of people don’t like what you have to say. I had no problem with Safari.

    • Typical Apple fanboy. Just because it didn’t “affect” your ability to access the sight dossn’t mean that you weren’t vulnerable. If you paid attention you would know that Apple doesn’t notify its users when they fix an issue and they are not the most timely when it comes to patches. Apple has never been more secure than other OS. It has only been in the last 5-7 years that Apple density has been sufficient to attract malware code writers. Apple has always lied about their security as a marketing tool. They always knew that code writers weren’t interested in them. Right after 9-11 I did a rotation at FBI HQ. Their cyber guys showed us how easy it was to exploit any operating system.

      • Wow, the browser hate runs strong in this one. Now, if he used a 1911 model Safari browser, THAT is something to get wiggy about!

        • Browsers wars, caliber wars…it’s all one. Both about as useful and they serve the same purpose.

        • iOS was also displaying the google blocked website error, so was not just a ‘PC thing’

          Oh and any goon who can use ‘the google’ can hack into a Mac in 2 seconds. The password protection is a joke. Think Command-S.

          Glad to see you’re back up quickly, TTAG

        • Scoff all you want but when somebody sreals your personal information from your “secure” browser don’t go whining about it. The real danger is not that your system is vulnerable, it is your belief that it is invulnerable is where the danger lies. Just ask the Germans and Japanese.

        • This is not a pissing contest. Unlike a DGU, computer threats are an everyday occurrence. Putting misplaced trust the security of your software based on marketing claims is foolish and irresponsible. Malware is a community problem. If a group of users places unwarranted faith in the security of their software then this puts everyone at risk. All software is equally vulnerable to exploitation.

  4. If it was a deliberate attack then they should be hearing from the FBI and the US Attorney’s office before they hear frok you.

    • I will put it out there: WHERE DO YOU THINK BLOOMY IS SPENDING HIS $50 MILLION?? It sure ain’t on Shannon’s organizing wit.

    • “should be hearing from the FBI and the US Attorney’s office”…now I need a new keyboard.

      • Criminal prosecution precedes civil action. The criminal probe forms the basis for the civil suit because without it will be very hard to attribute the attack to a specific individual.

        • I know, but I do not think a federal agency under the current administration will give two farts about a potential malware attack against a pro gun rights blog site.

  6. i’ve had my firefox browser hijacked by snap.do and two other malware attempts since i started visiting ttag. as soon as it’s detected, perform a system restore from days previous. more effective than ‘uninstalling’. it is the price of remaining informed.
    or buy a mac.

    • If you paid attention you would know MAC invulnerability was myth. There is now lots of malware aimed at Apple systems.

      • for future reference please note that i leave the sarcasm discerning to the reader. also note that my post time was previous to anyone mentioning mac susceptibility. your post was at 08:49, mine at 08:41. duh.
        i promise to pay attention from now on.

        • Sorry pal, Apple has been in active security denial since the beginning. I can remember ongoing stack attacks in the 90s that were aggressively denied by Apple Command.

  7. Let’s do a caption contest on that photo. I’ll start, “ladies and gentlemen, I give you the world’s strongest nerd!”

  9. Who is this former commenter? The U.S. Attorney won’t touch a case unless the losses suffered are in excess of 250k, and some districts have a 1m threshold.

    • You could well be correct to get the feds interested.

      But in my experience, the State boys don’t have such thresholds, at least for initiating investigations.

      Also, you never know…this could be one arm of a larger attack. TTAG’s financial loss may not meet the fed threshold, but if a bigger thing, it certainly might.

      No harm in reporting it if foul play is suspected.

  10. I suspected someone was attacking TTAG. The anti’s must be tiring of nasty name calling, since it isn’t working, so now they try to shut us up by interfering with online discussion…but maybe the hint about a former commenter with a Napoleon Complex is the real story.

  11. If we are as bad as the antis say, then surely one of our readers would have “gone postal.” I swore a little at my computer, and that was it.

    • Only you reported it over 3 hours after they already knew. 😉

      {Just yankin your chain…I realize not everyone reads every article)

  14. Dan,
    That attack last night wrecked my whole evening. I’ll be posting my bank account and routing numbers later so that you can direct deposit my refund.

  15. +1Full Cleveland. Not in any way an expert but it may not be any one person. A few years ago the Keltec site had malware on it for a YEAR before it was fixed. Fixing TTAG in hours is great. Keep up the good fight.:-)

  16. Malware – a/k/a – friendly visit from the NSA (thanks for protecting me from my own ability to protect myself).

    • Or maybe one of Bloomie’s “mercenaries?” Or just a “fan from across the sea?”

  17. Lookout on an Android now reports the site as unsafe and tries to block it.

    Any idea why?

  18. Anyone have any idea why I get 500 syntax errors when attempting to post comments or replies in Chrome? TTAG runs better over there in general, but there’s simply too much advertising or Godonlyknowswhat attached to this site to run very well at all and it all sloooowwwwws way down (Firefox not responding) then crashes and burns.

    This really needs to be fixed – I don’t have nearly as much trouble on any other webpage whatsoever.

    Tom

  19. I was reading a few TTAG articles — going back and forth between web-pages — and CHROME went Red-Screen and said nooooooo!

    Saved by Chrome. BTW: I have had issues with many gun blogs — these are malicious attacks by anti-gun hackers. It’s not the group “Anonymous”.

    Maybe I need to start reading TTAG on my tablets…..

    • I’m running NoScript, but I’m still getting redirected by the attack warnings.

      Just annoying.

      • With noscript you should be safe (as long as you don’t intentionally allow the bad domains) so you could disable the google malware warning. This is the first time i’ve had it so I feel safe enough turning it off.

  21. I was at work during the outage, so didn’t notice a thing. Glad to see everything’s working again though.

  22. I was wondering about this, I got a strange warning from my browser which blocked the site. The stuff that was blocked seemed to be ads, though.

    • Yeah, the malware guys seem to be targeting ad networks lately. It makes sense when you think about it- hack one site, you get to put a malware drop on that site, but if you get your code into an ad network, that code gets presented on every site that ad network serves. That’s hundreds or thousands of sites, easy.

      The ad networks need to raise their game. That kind of thing should be harder to pull off than it is.

      • AND ad dispensing concerns aren’t always that diligent about software updates and anti-malware/firewall package installation/updates. Just rakin’ in the revenue is all.

  25. Seriously, look at the rhetoric coming out of the Bloomie Moms for Banning Guns, and all of the other anti-freedom groups. Using malware to shut down this site is certainly something they would support.

  26. I like the picture. I wonder if I can actually do that? There are about 6 dead laptops in my house that my wife refuses to recycle.

  28. Without additional evidence, I wouldn’t immediately jump to the conclusion that this was a targeted attack by anti-gunners. There are plenty of organizations out there that are trying to do various malicious things with really only one goal in mind: get as much money from people as they can. The fact that they hit TTAG may have nothing to do with the content of the site.

  29. Lot of head spinning and vitriol in the left-wing sewer at Crooks and Liars,
    after the Suzy Mad-Lady article. Coincidence?

  30. I’ve been using Firefox, yesterday it hit me with the described “attack page” warning when I tried to go to TTAG and I overrode it, it was fine for the remainder of the day but just now I tried clicking on this article (the others in the past few minutes were fine, I mean *this* specific article) and it triggered the same warning.

    I think our “hacktivist” buddy is still lurking about.

  31. Well… Update on my side. Opened up a few pages and then went to comment on one. Got hit with the warning and had to work my way back into where I was headed in the first place. Anyway…ATM adply ads have been replaced with the warning message in my browser. Hope this helps. (Sent a note to you guys via email too)

  33. I use absolutely nothing but adblock and noscript and I visit the full spectrum of spaces on the Internet and I hardly ever have seen anything very harmful come from places that users are warned about. Where the normal user needs to have their guard up are actually the places that Joe Shmoe Net Browser go the most and are the more “trustworthy” looking places. I choose being opened up to attacks with minimal defenses: that way I can see something has slipped by or an unusual event occurs. If it triggers any trips or comes from an unusual vector…even a CPU resource that suddenly seems to be oddly behaving…I’m sandboxed and have recent images at the ready to deploy posthaste. I didn’t notice anything odd yesterday other than the fact I seemed to be getting hit by redirects from Google..that is most likely nothing to worry about if unless you are paranoid (like me) and/or you would lose information needed in shoring yourself up. Even the seediest of the Dark Web is a lot safer than common places you’d not even think to shield yourself against. That’s just my experience, anyway…YMMV.

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