LDWForums blocked by FireFox/Google

I check the forums posts every day, as well as the preview sites. (I'm hoping that February 8th, 2012 comes soon! :~)

But today, instead of the LDWForums page, I got a warning from FireFox that this site was blocked for distributing malware...

I know better, and have various security in place even if you'd been hacked, so I 'ignored' the warning and pressed through to warn you that this was happening.

I also grabbed the link to the status page that explains why you were blocked. Perhaps some unfortunate advertiser? No idea.

Here is why Google/Firefox claimed you were blocked.

And when I tried to tell them this wasn't an attack site, they felt they knew better and redirected me here.

We did discover a problem very early yesterday, and we promptly took action to correct it (although it might take some time for the warnings to go away for everyone, unfortunately).

As for the new Virtual Families game and the date you see on our Previews page, "February 8, 2012" is the date that the news item was posted there. We haven't yet determined when the game might be released, but we will make it obvious when we do announce an anticipated release date.

Excellent! I'll continue checking daily. :~)

i myself am getting this same message for the site as malware.will be checking back once in awhile. i never had probs with site before.i'm sure you guys straighten it out though.

Whew!! I just got the same message/warning and the first few times it happened it wouldn't let me "ignore" the warning. I finally got it!!!

Kind of scary!!

The warning was back again today.

I'm not sure if my override of it finally expired, or if it's just back, but again, I thought you should know.

Google's diagnostic information says that the last time malware was found was on May 22, the day of the original incident. We're still evaluating what action we are going to take, but the malware has been removed (and is still gone).

I don't know if this is part of the problem but I could not log into the Forums using Google Chrome. When I logged in using IE some of the words in posts had turned into links for ads. They were not like that a few days ago

It is rather strange to say the least!! I do hope nothing has gotten into the Forums as, although I don't post very much, I usually log in each day to see what you are all up to!

Hope everyone is okay and still happy players!!

As for the link-turned-words, I get that on one computer in Google Chrome, too. I think it may be some sort of app downloaded or thing someone's enabled in the browser's settings.

txmom I found this site helpful in removing that problem. It is called Text Enhance and is a malware add on. I followed the instructios from the following site and now all posts are clear of those 'word/links'. It was in both IE 9 and Google Chrome and named 'I Want This' - I haven't a clue how it got there!!

How to Remove Text Enhance Add On/Virus:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/fo...30-bd8299266429

Oh, I forgot to add that 'I Want This' also appears in Conrol Panel>Programs and can be deleted just like any other program. I did that too.

Oh no, it's malware? Well, it was Text Enhance, so I'll have to look into that. Thank you.

That's very interesting considering I emailed forums@ldw.com on May 15 to tell them of the problem and again on May 26 (by which time Google had completely blocked the site and I couldn't find any way in). Today my favorite pages were still blocked but as I figured it must have been fixed by now I sought another way in and got here fine without my antivirus putting up notices.

I found it disconcerting that there were no notices put up (on the LDW main website, facebook, or twitter) about the forums being blocked. Now to see this thread, I'm frankly more upset as those of us who were blocked from the forums had no access to the info.
I fully realize people who work here are extremely busy (and I don't think I'm anyone so special as to deserve special treatment) but it feels really disrespectful that no one took 60 seconds to reply to my emails to tell me, "hey thanks for the head's up, we're workin' on it" or "hey, it's fixed now you don't have to worry about coming into the forums." It also feels like a huge slap in the face to find that my original warning (which I did as a courtesy) was apparently ignored but several days later the problems is finally "discovered."

I've always had a lot of respect for LDW and have been a customer (owning nearly all of the games) for a long time and I can't imagine this is truly an appropriate way to treat your customers.

I'm sorry that you're upset. Unfortunately we did not see those emails from you, and we certainly weren't deliberately ignoring them. The forums@ldw.com email address is only used by the forums for routine notifications and is an outgoing email address only. Any time that you want to make sure you reach one of us, please use support@ldw.com or let us know via our Help Desk. There is contact information for us on our main ldw.com site, as well, that will ensure that you reach us.

The first indications we had of a problem was on May 22nd, which corresponds with the diagnostic information we received from Google. Arthur and I took the actions necessary to get things cleaned up and he did tell me that he would notify our fans on Facebook and Twitter that same day.

Unfortunately, we don't have the resources of a large company when dealing with these situations, and we aren't perfect, by any means. However, in no way did we intend to be disrespectful of anyone. We work hard and do the best we can, and we know that this entire incident has been more protracted than any of us wanted. We realize that some people are still receiving warnings, even though the malware was removed over 2 weeks ago.

As this wasn't an issue with the games but rather the forums, I didn't think the support@ldw.com was the appropriate email address to use, never imagining the forum one wasn't even a checked one but I get what you're saying. Still, I recall from having to contact other companies with forums that they usually get annoyed if you contact the company proper when it's a forum issue so I did what seemed obvious for the issue. But I'm glad to know I wasn't being ignored deliberately and as I said I couldn't imagine that would be normal.

I still can't find any notifications on Twitter or Facebook so if you could point me towards those pages I would like to bookmark them in case there are ever future notices I wouldn't want to miss.

I am one of those people still receiving warnings as it took me several minutes of go-arounds just to get back here now - hopefully this will clear up soon. I am puzzled though why Google didn't catch it sooner. Guess I'm really glad now to have my Kaspersky system and it's early heads-up.

I do understand the reason you used that email address and your expectation that your concerns would get to the right people that way. I'm sure that other companies have dedicated people handling their forums, as well. However, we're practically microscopic when it comes to company size, and we simply don't have the manpower to dedicate anyone to one area of our business. It works far better for us to use a single support email address that can be monitored by the entire team.

I was too busy on the day of the malware incident to look at Twitter or Facebook, so I didn't actually see anything that Arthur posted there. Once the malware was removed, he likely deleted anything he may have posted that was related to the incident, in order to avoid alarming anyone unnecessarily.

To the best of our knowledge, the incident on May 15th was not related to malware. There were issues with forum images and downloads (which you kindly posted about), but those problems were caused by a corrupted table in the underlying database, which I repaired. I monitor the forums daily (including weekends), and the first indication of malware on the site was on May 22nd.

We are aware of Google's process for dealing with these malware warnings, and we are considering how we want to proceed.

I completely appreciate that as a smaller company you have to spead your resources (people) around and it usually does work great that way.

I'm not referring to the previous issues of the images and the downloads which you guys so wonderfully fixed (and I'm currently enjoying a mod for Plant Tycoon).
I suppose it's possible that my May 15 issue had nothing to do with Malware but in the email I sent I listed the same info about weddingbells and trojans as keeps showing in the Google "attack site" block so I have to think it was the same thing. Anyway, glad it's fixed now, hope the warnings stop soon.

A couple of years ago I had a site that I no longer maintained or needed. I got an email from the hosting company saying it was infested by malware, and when I checked it looked similar to what has been described. I deleted the site (which I should really have done a couple of years earlier as it was well out of date) and closed the hosting account.

A couple of months or so later out of curiosity I searched Google using some of the keywords for the site and to my surprise it still appeared, although clicking on the link gave a 404 error message. Obviously Google don't rush to change some things.

I have this site bookmarked, and was coming here this morning and received these messages. Of course, I told them it was safe, but it did get me a little concerned. What's going on?

Hi esther1981, this thread has info on that.

Awesome! Thanks MissKathy! I didn't realize there was another thread about it. Thank you!

I got the warning today. Evidently I haven't been here since May 22?? That's odd. But anyways I'm glad things are straightened out!

I'm still getting warnings too but I'm trusting that's it's fixed and safe to be here.

Oh, and the May 22 thing isn't about your visiting so don't worry about that date.

What happened when Google visited this site?

Of the 16 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 11 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2012-06-10, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 2012-05-22.
(According to the above Warning, no malware has been found since May 22nd).

It's my understanding: If you want Google to pick up your latest changes, you should request a malware review via Google Webmaster Tools - this will make Google re-scan your site within a few hours. Practical Guide to dealing with Google's Malware Warnings.

I can't comprehend the time it takes to resolve this matter

I was still getting warnings of malware on the site from Google Chrome up to yesterday. Today, however, I got in without any warnings. Perhaps they've updated their database at last?

I didn't notice it until you mentioned it, but I didn't get any warnings today either. It seems like they have.
I don't know if the specific browser affects anything, but I'm using Google Chrome too, so it might be different for others (unless I'm just insane and the browser doesn't have anything to do with this).