WHAT? I’VE BEEN HACKED?

brickhousechick
computerhowtoguide.com

computerhowtoguide.com

Brickhousechick, you have been hacked, said the Wild Rider and boob lover, Susie Lindau to me the other day.  WHAT??????, said I.  She then told me that when clicking on a comment I had made, she got re-directed to another site, brickhouse.com instead of brickhousechick.com

 WHAT THE #%*&@%^+%^#, said I.

Sure enough, when I went to any comment I had left on your lovely blogs, I saw a different page welcoming me to Brickhouse Software.  Who the h** were they?  I wasn’t about to click on their site to find out since this proved that I had indeed, been hacked.

Panic set in.  I froze.  I stopped eating (for an hour).  I stopped sleeping.  I checked my bank accounts and realized I was safe because I had nothing in them to begin with, I stopped living and only cared about  getting this problem resolved.

That’s when I entered,  WordPress Hell.

nuclearblast.de

nuclearblast.de

 A place where NO human can be found.  A place somewhere in the blogosphere where forums, tutorials, comments and more forums bombard you with information that you cannot possibly make sense of.  A place with a lot of codes.  And digits.  And characters.

a:1:{s:5:”entry”;a:1:{i:0;a:9:{s:2:”id”;s:8:”47228854″;s:4:”hash”;s:32:”88044db6653fa55fb9b26d01ed58fadc”;s:11:”requestHash”;s:9:”cuchita49″;s:10:”profileUrl”;s:29:”http://gravatar.com/cuchita49″;s:17:”preferredUsername”;s:9:”cuchita49″;s:12:”thumbnailUrl”;s:61:”http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/88044db6653fa55fb9b26d01ed58fadc”;s:6:”photos”;a:1:I

I’m sorry but, yo no hablo WordPress code.

Between posting her boob and hamburger post and living her life, Susie tried to help me by sending me google searches on what to do when hacked.

The fabulous Peg, at Peg-o-Leg’s Ramblings, let me know that she had been experiencing this issue on my site for months!! WHAT???????, said I.

The lovely, Pam at  Year ‘Round Thanksgiving Project, kept checking in on me to see if I was back and running.

 I sent 455 messages to imaginary staff members at WordPress.  I posted S.O.S messages on anything I could find.  I stalked staff member’s personal pages to see if I could coerce any of them to pay attention to me.  I threatened their imaginary lives.  I tweeted, I twirled and I twerked…to no avail.

Finally, someone responded.  A real person!!  Praise the Lord, there are real people hiding in WordPress Hell!  And they are kinda nice, when they respond.  

This is how I met the new love of my life, Dustin.

I would give you his contact information so that you could use it when you have WP issues, but I’d have to kill you afterwards.

After corresponding with Dustin for 3 days (he was a bit slow on the replies), he finally set me straight.  It turns out I was not hacked and it was just a simple URL issue (which I still don’t understand how it got messed up when it had been fine for a year and a half.) Here is the exchange:

WordPress.com Forums.Private Support

 HELP! MY WP SITE HAS BEEN HACKED! WHAT DO I DO NOW?

ME:  When I click on my Gravatar pic on comments I make on blogs, instead of directing me to brickhousechick.com it goes to brickhouse.com, some software security site.

WP:  Nothing.

WP: Nothing.

WP: Nothing.

 ME:  CAN SOMEONE HELP ME SOLVE THIS?  I PAY A LOT OF MONEY FOR MY BLOG (don’t ask).  IS THERE AN ACTUAL PERSON THAT CAN HELP ME? (note the change in font size)

*cricket*

*cricket*

Hours later:

ME:  CAN ANYONE HELP ME, PLEASE??

WP: Nothing.

WP: Nothing.

ME:  HELLO???? ANYONE THERE?  HOW DOES ONE GET HELP ON WP???  FEELING FRUSTRATED! (you think?)

DUSTIN:  Can you provide the link on the post where you made the comment so I can take a look? Thanks.

ME: **falls flat on her face from the shock that a person has responded**

Oh, thank God.  Thanks for responding, Dustin.  Another blogger told me about this issue.  Have I been hacked?

*cricket*

*cricket*

*cricket*

Days later:

ME:  Any luck looking into this issue?

DUSTIN:  Nothing.

DUSTIN: Nothing.

DUSTIN: Nothing.

ME: Dustin, DON’T LEAVE ME NOW!!!!!!!! 😦  (note the change in font size)

ME: Swearing.

ME: Swearing.

ME: Swearing.

DUSTIN:  Hey there!  The website address in your profile was set to brickhouse.com.  I’ve updated it to point to brickhousechick.com.  It may take a few hours, but all of your comments that you’ve left in the past will correct themselves and direct visitors to your correct site.

If I can help you with anything else, please let me know. Cheers!

ME: So I wasn’t hacked?

Four hours later:

DUSTIN:  Now this is an unofficial guess, but I think when you registered to leave a comment the first time, you accidentally typed brickhouse.com instead of brickhousechick.com.  I’m not saying that’s what happened, but that’s my guess.  Now that you have the correct domain, you won’t have to worry about it.

The next morning:

ME:  OH, NO!!!! It is still NOT FIXED, DUSTIN!!! HELP!!!!



That’s three whole days of my life I will never get back.  Not to mention the food I did not eat during that one hour of despair.  Eventually, Dustin came through.

In my desperate search for salvation, I did discover that many of our blogger buddies have been hacked and some have lost all of their posts and WP files.  The horror!  

It is because of this that I will leave you with the only advice I actually understand and was able to complete myself,  thanks to that awesome, Susie:

Two Step Authentication

Don’t ask me how I  completed these two steps but somehow, I did.  If I can do it, so can all of you.  

Go now and authenticate your WP blogs to death, amigos!  

Corre. Corre. Ahora! 

Yes Peg, that includes you!

50 thoughts on “WHAT? I’VE BEEN HACKED?”

  1. Holy Crap! That sounds terrible and mega stressful I hope you are recovering with a nice glass of sangria and perhaps something sweet. Time to print and or back up all my posts! Thanks for the reminder!! Hope you’re doing better.

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  5. I’ve seen this before with other bloggers, I’d click on their name in the comments and it would send me to some other strange site. Glad to know it’s just a simple case of wrong URL for you. As for being hacked and losing all your posts, that scares me to death. I’ll have to look into the 2 step thing…

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  6. I’ve resisted Two Step Authentification up to this point. Seemed intrusive… but better to have WP butting into my blog than some unknown hacker, I guess. Glad that you got your troubles resolved. Susie always knows best!

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  7. So delighted you are back on track. Woot, woot, woot!!!
    Not that I would dream of correcting your new-bestie, Dustin, but it wasn’t always like that. I would usually just click on your avatar and follow you back here, but months ago (maybe 6) that didn’t work anymore. Sorry I was a bad blogging friend and didn’t investigate. 😦
    I will try to figure out the 2-step thing.

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  11. Yikes! What an ordeal! Sometimes the folks at WP do take a while to respond, but given that they host millions of blogs I suppose that’s understandable.

    Also, I don’t think he’s right about past comments you’ve left. I think the link stays as whatever link you had associated when you left the comment.

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    1. Thanks, Jill. I am so bad at this stuff and it took all my brain cells to keep up and find a resolution. My brain is spent! 🙂 AY!

      I can’t believe I was one of the millions who ran to the store today to buy BREAD and MILK! I have food, wine and a working blog so I should be able to survive JUNO!

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  18. Sorry to hear about your problems- especially with the imaginary WP folks! I’m happy to hear that your issues were resolved. I’m going to have to look into that 2 step authentication.

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  20. That stinking problem used to send me to that good-for-nothing other site in the wayback, Mrs. B., but I thought I was doing something wrong, not you! Go figure. Now I’ll always get to your ever-changing blog theme. 🙂 Pretty look today, Maria. You have the prettiest eye in blog business. 😉

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    1. I had no idea this had been going on for so long! 😦 Glad to know you always were able to find me, nevertheless! It’s my ADD making me change my theme so much. I get bored easily and love to change it up. I almost posted a pic of BOTH my eyes but decided one was enough. LOL. 🙂

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  21. Thanks for the amazing shout! I was glad to help. The two step verification will keep would-be hackers from our blogs. It’s hard for me to log in!!!
    I don’t think people realize that clicking on blog names left with comments redirects readers to their blog. It’s pretty cool!
    Glad you got it fixed!

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    1. You were my saving grace!! I’m with Peg in that none of this makes any sense to me!!! AHHHHHH! I will have to get used to this whole authentication process, I already had to use two different codes today and that was stressful enough. Gracias!!! xo

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    1. I am definitely missing something in my brain that allows me to comprehend any of this stuff!!! There is no hope for me, I have to rely on others to set me straight. Thank God Dustin came to my rescue.

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  25. Ahhh… Maria.

    I will not pretend to know what all happened with your account, but I am reminded of finding someone on Twitter that had her blog hacked– and it was a Blogger/Blogspot one, which IMHO isn’t quite as secure. I stretched and flexed outside my comfort zone, did some Google Fu (actually, the Duck Duck Go form), and inspected the HTML of the page source. Between my web searches and combing through the HTML, I figured she had a bad widget that was redirecting to another site. So, I told her to remove it. Bam. That fixed the problem.

    Remember me if you need tech support, okay? I don’t claim to be expert, but I’ve managed to get some things done.

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    1. Believe me, I thought of you immediately but I really didn’t want to bother you with your back surgery recuperation!! I almost did because I knew you could get to the bottom of it!! Next time, mi amigo. Hopefully, there will be no next time but you ‘da man! 🙂 🙂

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