PSU security upgrades and Firefox 3 issue
- Posted July 21st, 2008 at 06:58 EDT by PSU Staff
- 5,730 views
- 36 Comments
Hi PSU Readers,
On Friday last week PSU.com was compromised by a hacker who installed some bad software on our server. As soon as we were altered, we immediately traced how they got in and closed the security hole. We then changed passwords, reinstalled the OS and performed a full code audit to prevent it happening again. The site is now fully clean and running as it should be.
Unfortunately during this time, the website was anonymously reported to stopbadware.org and Google, who placed a warning notice on PSU.com that visitors using Firefox 3 are forced to see before they can reach the website (as well as a label next to our site in the search results).
In order to resolve this we have sent a request to both StopBadware.org and Google.com and we have been confirmed to be in the queue awaiting review. They have checked out the site themselves and have confirmed the issues are gone. We do not know, however, how long it will take before they can lift this label, but hopefully it will be soon.
As regular visitors will know we work really hard here (see Dave's non-stop live blogging during E3) and it's a great shame that as a legitimate site we were penalized like this even after resolving the issues immediately.
We would like to extend our sincere apologies to anyone inconvenienced by this. We'd also like to reassure everyone that we are now devoting even more resources to anti-hack measures, so you can feel confident you are browsing a trustworthy, secure website.
Thank you for your understanding.
Best regards,
Seb, Kieran and the whole PSU team.
Comments
-
-
-
-
Odium_Generis_Humani
- 7:50am BST - July 21st, 2008
- 4
Funny you mention that about PSP's. I didn't realixe support for it stopped because of hackers. That sucks. I'm not a hacker and I love my PSP. As far as I'm concerned, hackers stole my $170 that I paid for my PSP.
-
jimmy303
- 7:51am BST - July 21st, 2008
- 5
"Unfortunately during this time, the website was anonymously reported to stopbadware.org and Google, who placed a warning notice on PSU.com that visitors using Firefox 3 are forced to see before they can reach the website" -
well actually you cant wiev this page at all with FF the alert message popps up everywhere
-
BlueRevolvuR |
BlueRevolvuR- 8:31am BST - July 21st, 2008
- 6
yay! psu's bak! isnt it ironic this took place around E3 time?
-
-
killercop |
killercop- 9:03am BST - July 21st, 2008
- 8
I got the Google warning and later scanned with my Norman Anti-virus and found a trojan. Oh well, I'm one of those who's actually willing to buy anti-virus so it really doesn't matter to me. =)
And I also run Ubuntu on my 2nd harddisk so viruses here have no effect either, muahaahaa!
-
Viperseven |
Viper7- 9:16am BST - July 21st, 2008
- 9
Doesnt really matter to me since I have been using Ubuntu. The chances of getting something from this site to my computer is slim at best
-
-
-
joeyjoejoeshababadoo
- 9:55am BST - July 21st, 2008
- 12
Its not ironic.. Its what happened, You sir need to learn the definition of Irony.
-
-
-
-
terminator12259 |
tacitassassin25- 12:44pm BST - July 21st, 2008
- 16
seriously what is the point of hacking psu, some people have no lives what so ever, they should be watching batman tdk, or play their ps3's not wasting their time hacking psu
-
-
-
-
-
G00ber1993
- 4:51pm BST - July 21st, 2008
- 21
no matter what happend i still think this is one of the best and most helpful sites on the web
and the hacker was probally some dumb a ss no good 360 fan lol
-
-
-
-
-
electricmine |
cookiehour- 10:33pm BST - July 21st, 2008
- 26
I'm just glad things were fixed. I don't know why this site keeps being attacked like this but it sounds fishy.
-
-
-
jigglespsu
- 5:37am BST - July 22nd, 2008
- 29
What exactly was the payload? I need to check see if any lingering issues affect my system
-
-
incredibilistic
- 10:02am BST - July 22nd, 2008
- 31
Good job getting everything up and running so quickly. Good thing too, this is the only site my office hasn't caught onto (most other sites are blocked) so I can still get my PS3 fix when I need it.
-
xStatiCa
- 10:21am BST - July 22nd, 2008
- 32
To begin with I love the PSU site and visit it daily. It contains a great source of PS3 information.
Even legitimate sites can be compromised though and deserve to be shown as a warning if their site is compromised. How much work is put into a site does not equate to the security level of the site if that is not where the work is spent. This site was compromised and spreading malware(and who knows what). Firefox3 alerts us to it so to avoid the site(I run linux but still appreciate the warnings). So far things worked preciesely how they should. It might take some time to verify the clean state and hopefully that can improve but the compromise shouldn't of happened to begin with.
With that aside I am glad the site is verified clean again. I need my psu injection in the mornings. Congrats on getting to the bottom of the incedent and cleaning it up.
-
BlueRevolvuR |
BlueRevolvuR- 11:40am BST - July 22nd, 2008
- 33
for some reason it is still shown as an attacked site on firefox. lukily i'm viewing the site through safari
-
-
-
Advertisement