Forum is infected with malware

[gusgus]

I just came to the forum for the first time to report a bug on MI. The link that google offered me sent me to a page full of boner pill ads, but the URL was absolutely himalayastudios.com/forum/index.php?[stuff]. So the forum server has been infected with malware. It didn't try to download anything to me but I assume that a page full of boner pill ads are not supposed to be on the forum server. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

PSA: always keep your forum server software packages up to date!

[Gronagor]

Strange. Tried a few search queries on Google, and couldn't find anything like you described. What exactly did you search for?

[navynuke04]

Same. I don't have any issues with the forums.

Despite our best efforts, spam bots do sneak in from time to time and post ads and links to things like that. Those are promptly deleted and the accounts banned.

Just because someone posts links to things like that does not mean the forums themselves have been infected.

[GameDevChris]

I've seen it before, too. These aren't just links being posted on the forum, but the entire page seems to be replaced with text for discount Viagra and other pills.

Sometimes it happens in one browser and not another, and sometimes gives different results on different computers (almost like it's random). In fact, if you search Google for "himalaya studios forums", then the 3rd link down is for the Himalaya forums, but it says "#1 – Cheapest viagra in the world . FDA Approved Pharmacy, EXTRA ..." in the search results.

So it seems that something is definitely up at the server level.

https://www.google.com.au/search?source=hp&ei=oAl9XLzBL5awrQH5oqPIBA&q=himalaya+studios+forums&btnK=Google+Search&oq=himalaya+studios+forums&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i22i30.3312.8036..8328...1.0..1.378.5653.0j13j10j2......0....1..gws-wiz.....0..0i131j0j0i10.5ZH1Kcl_U98

[Gronagor]

Okay. Those posts I've seen before, and I assumed Navy cleaned them. They were posted by 'new users' quite a few time when the forums were mostly in hiatus.
I guess the easiest way to fix these would be to use Google's webmaster tools and have them scan the current pages more often, or if I remember correctly you can scan them immediately.  But the results still take a few days to pull through.

I've experienced that once before with an old website... quite an irritation to fix.