weird things vs. the hackers and malware bots

Well ladies and gentlemen, it appears that the blog was hacked on Friday night by a bot which tried to redirect incoming traffic to a malware site. Thanks to a confirmation from longtime reader Just Al, the hack was found, cleared up, and the security measures around here have been tightened. At least some of the blame should probably go to me since while I kept the engine and all the plugins current to within hours, I’ve been putting off a recommended update to the blog’s theme because that would’ve undone most of the mods I’ve made to it over the past year. Of course, in light of current events, I updated the theme and re-added my modifications as soon as the redirects were stopped, sealing this potential vulnerability. Tweaks to my spam filter may also be in order depending on what I find after going through all the relevant logs, but they shouldn’t affect you.

The only change you should notice is the new layout and style of the comments section (which would actually be a lot neater and, in my humble opinion, look a lot better than it did before), and a slight tweak to the styling of post titles. On the backend, however, there’s a slew of changes that will make it much easier to keep WoWT current across the board and help prevent all currently known exploits. Nevertheless, there’s no such thing as a 100% secure site. The best my efforts can do is minimize potential damage and fix problems as soon as they arise. So if you’re having problems accessing the blog, or seeing something that really shouldn’t be there, please take a minute and contact me. Even if I’m already working on it, every tidbit of information helps me be a little more thorough and keep this blog safer in the long run.