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majicbar
09-02-2012, 02:55 PM
It appears that the AlienScientist.com has been take over by hackers. The forum is now a broken link and other pages are overwritten with junk and useless. The site had been the target of hackers for some time and was trying to make it hard for them to get into the site and leave SPAM, and now this, in a fit of anger I suppose. Sad to see this kind of immature vandalism, it is too bad there is not some special penalties that could be given for this kind of damage.

calikid
09-02-2012, 03:46 PM
Can you please share your source?

Not that I don't believe you but you know how rumors & the internet can go hand in hand.
Always best to confirm.

Could the webmaster simply be trying to erase and reinstall for a fresh start? (Ie maintenance)

majicbar
09-02-2012, 04:09 PM
Can you please share your source?

Not that I don't believe you but you know how rumors & the internet can go hand in hand.
Always best to confirm.

Could the webmaster simply be trying to erase and reinstall for a fresh start? (Ie maintenance)

As a member of the forum there my source is my own experience as a poster to that forum and watching the difficulties that they have had with the hackers and spammers. When I've called up other pages in the forum there are multiple backgrounds that have been added and they make reading the pages almost impossible. No webmaster would be so poor at ones job to have this happen by shear incompetence, this is very deliberate vandalism. The forum here is well run and I've never seen the kinds of troubles that have happened on the AlienScientist.com site. I can only assume that they are trying to decide how best to repair their site and prevent such attacks in the future, perhaps a total rebuild will be necessary, I would suppose that all postings will have to be lost as they may have been compromised with viral surprises as well. The attack there seems to be of a whole scale above what I've read about before.

Lee
09-02-2012, 04:41 PM
Thanks for the info, majicbar! I noticed the AS site was down yesterday and wondered what happened.

Doc
09-02-2012, 05:04 PM
majicbar: Any idea what is behind all the hacking/vandalism against them? It sounds pretty intense and persistent to be just some random thing.

majicbar
09-02-2012, 07:19 PM
majicbar: Any idea what is behind all the hacking/vandalism against them? It sounds pretty intense and persistent to be just some random thing.

Just guessing, but it seems that somebody in the hacking community, or perhaps a group of them, have decided to attack them with vengeance after they were caught in the site fooling around. The spammers had a field day as the site was very easy to get registered and they had some other software issues. I got hacked several times after being on the site, taking over all control of my computer and digging through it, and they had virus software triggering alerts so the hackers had compromised some basic elements of the site's system.

Another possibility, I've read that the Chinese and North Korean spy agencies train their cyber spies by attacking sites and exploiting weaknesses, perhaps they found it fun to train against AlienScientist. Maybe even the DOD, NSA and CIA were using it as a training site, after-all UFOs and Area 51 were hot topics there, maybe they would be interested in seeing if any whistleblowers were giving the site a peek. And were the Chinese or North Koreans doing the attacks, it would be of value to watch them attack and use that as counter-hacking training for our own guys.

majicbar
09-03-2012, 03:53 AM
http://www.alienscientist.com/forum/forum.php

The site is back up, no news on what happened, I've asked, maybe I'll get some information.

Garuda
09-03-2012, 06:35 AM
Good to see they're back up! :thumbup:

Garuda
09-03-2012, 09:02 AM
Hmm, I just tried to log on but couldn't get in. My user-id / password combination are not recognized, and when I want to retrieve them by mail I'm getting the message that my mail isn't in the database either...


When I look at a post I made in the past, I am now listed as a 'guest'.

( http://www.alienscientist.com/forum/showthread.php?1180-a-question-on-John-Mack&highlight=John+Mack )

Lee
09-03-2012, 12:55 PM
Hmm, I just tried to log on but couldn't get in. My user-id / password combination are not recognized, and when I want to retrieve them by mail I'm getting the message that my mail isn't in the database either...


When I look at a post I made in the past, I am now listed as a 'guest'.

( http://www.alienscientist.com/forum/showthread.php?1180-a-question-on-John-Mack&highlight=John+Mack )
Banned for trolling....? You are a notorious troll, Garuda! :biggrin2: (Joking).
Must be an innocent mistake on their part?

Doc
09-03-2012, 01:43 PM
Banned for trolling....? You are a notorious troll, Garuda! :biggrin2: (Joking).
Must be an innocent mistake on their part?

I saw your comment first thing as I logged on and went "WHAAAAAT???" :biggrin2:

Kidding aside, it sounds like their database has some holes in the code...or something else software related.

majicbar
09-03-2012, 02:04 PM
Banned for trolling....? You are a notorious troll, Garuda! :biggrin2: (Joking).
Must be an innocent mistake on their part?

From notes I've seen posted in the virus? thread some users got kicked off when they installed the new registry for the site, apparently a bug in the software was somehow deleting some members. Re-register with your same username and password and see if it will re-register your account. If it says your are already registered you might have to choose another. In some buggy software this happens. Open Minds did this to me and so I've seen it before, my first 1500 posts were no longer being counted, but it let me re-register.

epo333
09-03-2012, 02:17 PM
Maybe they are still in recovery mode. Lost some data base!

Garuda
09-03-2012, 02:28 PM
I sent a mail to the administrator. We'll see what happens.

earthman
09-03-2012, 09:38 PM
I signed on a short ago and a spammer posted in what looks like every thread on AlienScientist. Someone has it out for the site. And i do like the new skin. Looks good...

earthman

Garuda
09-07-2012, 08:40 AM
To put things into perspective: on August 21st we had to shut the online registration down because we couldn't handle the amount of spammers (hackers?) trying to sign up.
In the days before that, we also had to temporarily change the settings of the blogs to avoid them being taken over by spammers.

As posted here, http://www.theoutpostforum.com/tof/showthread.php?832-User-Registration-ENABLED-AGAIN, we had around 300 spammers trying to register in about 48 hours.
We didn't allow anybody in for over a week. (And it's in that time that the alien scientist forum went down).
When we did open the registrations again, we instantly had numerous spammers trying to sign up again.
(We're checking the email address and IP address of each new registration in over 70 blacklists, so they didn't succeed).

We then went to a system where you have to answer a simple random question correctly when registering, and that seems to have stopped the influx, at least for now.

rdunk
09-08-2012, 05:06 AM
I just checked, and I didn't have any trouble getting in!

Garuda
09-08-2012, 06:53 PM
As I didn't get any reaction, I ended up re-registering as Garuda...

CasperParks
09-08-2012, 09:11 PM
To put things into perspective: on August 21st we had to shut the online registration down because we couldn't handle the amount of spammers (hackers?) trying to sign up.
In the days before that, we also had to temporarily change the settings of the blogs to avoid them being taken over by spammers.

As posted here, http://www.theoutpostforum.com/tof/showthread.php?832-User-Registration-ENABLED-AGAIN, we had around 300 spammers trying to register in about 48 hours.
We didn't allow anybody in for over a week. (And it's in that time that the alien scientist forum went down).
When we did open the registrations again, we instantly had numerous spammers trying to sign up again.
(We're checking the email address and IP address of each new registration in over 70 blacklists, so they didn't succeed).

We then went to a system where you have to answer a simple random question correctly when registering, and that seems to have stopped the influx, at least for now.

Dislike those spammers, thanks for being on top of it.

Garuda
09-10-2012, 04:13 PM
It just doesn't stop... When I try to access the alien scientist forum now, my browser blocks it because if wants to install malware...

majicbar
09-10-2012, 08:21 PM
It just doesn't stop... When I try to access the alien scientist forum now, my browser blocks it because if wants to install malware...

Could it be that you are going to the site through a saved link on desktop or file, you might have a spoofed link and I had that same problem for a while too, so I called a clean link from Google and use that one to contact the site, deleting the old one? I really find the whole episode a real pain in the patooty. I hope they have it fixed for good, but it leaves me wondering.

calikid
09-10-2012, 10:08 PM
It just doesn't stop... When I try to access the alien scientist forum now, my browser blocks it because if wants to install malware...

Most of the pages work OK for me, but when I attempt to enter the Forum, I get a malware message as well. But the message is a warning that the Forum has been REPORTED for trying to install Malware (McAfee Site Advisor), not that malware is currently trying to be installed.
May or may not actually be infected, but I think they are blacklisted somehow?

Chris
09-11-2012, 02:39 AM
Here is the message I received from Google when I tried to visit the forum:



Advisory provided by
http://www.google.com/images/malware_logo.gif


Safe BrowsingDiagnostic page for alienscientist.com/forum
What is the current listing status for alienscientist.com/forum?

Site is listed as suspicious - visiting this web site may harm your computer.
Part of this site was listed for suspicious activity 2 time(s) over the past 90 days.
What happened when Google visited this site?

Of the 48 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 33 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2012-09-10, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 2012-09-10.Malicious software includes 2 trojan(s), 1 scripting exploit(s). Successful infection resulted in an average of 7 new process(es) on the target machine.
Malicious software is hosted on 1 domain(s), including boltedprior.net/ (http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=boltedprior.net/&hl=en).
1 domain(s) appear to be functioning as intermediaries for distributing malware to visitors of this site, including flepstudio.org/ (http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=flepstudio.org/&hl=en).
This site was hosted on 1 network(s) including AS21844 (THEPLANET) (http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=AS:21844&hl=en).
Has this site acted as an intermediary resulting in further distribution of malware?

Over the past 90 days, alienscientist.com/forum did not appear to function as an intermediary for the infection of any sites.
Has this site hosted malware?

No, this site has not hosted malicious software over the past 90 days.
How did this happen?

In some cases, third parties can add malicious code to legitimate sites, which would cause us to show the warning message.

newyorklily
09-11-2012, 05:16 AM
[/INDENT]How did this happen?

In some cases, third parties can add malicious code to legitimate sites, which would cause us to show the warning message.


That sounds like an intentional attack. Even if there is no malware, the warning would scare people away from the site.

Sent from my VM670 using Tapatalk 2

majicbar
09-11-2012, 10:32 PM
Their site is still getting hit by spammers, one has posted a page which caused my system to go to other sites outside of Alienscientist.com, a situation I think which could be rather dangerous.

calikid
09-14-2012, 08:53 PM
I was able to view the AlienScientist.com forums today. Looks to be back online.
Did not notice any SPAM posts. Appears to be back in business.
Kudos to their webmaster for getting things cleared up. :)

majicbar
09-15-2012, 06:39 AM
Looks like it took several tries to get it fixed, I hope that it is indeed fixed. I got hacked after being on the site and it took professional help to get my system fixed. The technician ran Malwarebytes against my system and thought it was fixed. I ran Microsoft Security Essentials right afterward and it found 9 or so variations of Win32/Sirefef!cfg, mosty 64 bit versions, a very nasty variety of virus and quarantined them and I've deleted them from my system, but I see from their descriptions as possibly altering files so I may have some left behind to shadow my system, I'll have to see how it goes. In that they also altered the Adobe Flash, I think they may have come in on a Youtube video.

calikid
09-15-2012, 03:43 PM
Bummer, have to hate drive by infections....
Glad you didn't suffer a complete erase/reinstall of the OS. Such a pain.

Funny the A.S. homepage "latest update" is listed as 8/22/12.
Nothing more recent addressing the outtage/resolution.
You'd think he would have mentioned the problem, but maybe he doesn't want to give the "black hats" the satisfaction....

Doc
09-15-2012, 03:48 PM
Bummer, have to hate drive by infections....
Glad you didn't suffer a complete erase/reinstall of the OS. Such a pain.

Yet another reason to have good backups and to keep those reinstall disks handy. Past a certain point of infection, if I don't trust the integrity of the system anymore, I wipe and do a fresh OS install.

calikid
09-15-2012, 03:54 PM
I see AS did address the issues more in depth on the forum (http://www.alienscientist.com/forum/showthread.php?1936-Virus/page19):
"Report Bugs or Issues with the Forum"

Garuda
11-04-2012, 04:06 PM
It seems to be down again...