Blog has been hijacked

Mar 01, 2009 in questions

Todays question:

Someone has hijacked my blog and posting everyday using ‘spun’ articles. the links are to adsnce sites. I have deadened the links and contacted Google, but have had no reply. What should I do, please?

This question actually creates a few possible questions in my mind. Are they posting as you or as a different user name within your blog. If they are using a different user name just log in and change the posting rights.

Under users there are a variety of settings

Administrator
Editor
Author
Contributor
Subscriber
Premium Subscriber

Each of these has different rights to add content to your blog. Also check your general settings and make sure what category from above is the default category to limit what people who register for your blog can do.

If they are posting as you then you need to change your password so that they can’t log in as you to post. You can access the change password by going to user – your profile.

If these don’t stop your problem then they are accessing your server directly and you need to contact your hosting provider and strengthen your passwords on your hosting account and change your data base access passwords which will mean you will need to change your wp-config.php file.

As always your questions and comments are appreciated.

Mike Paetzold

P.S. First week’s results from the 15 Minute Blog Traffic experiment are now posted on the test results blog.

Technorati Tags: blog hijack, blog posting, blog user settings

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Disclaimer: Some of the links mentioned within this post or posts it may lead to are my affiliate links and in such case I will get compensated for recommending those products. However, I will never recommend something that I don’t personally believe in and I welcome your questions and feedback.

11 comments

Fred Lotgering on March 1, 2009 at 8:08 am

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the post. I was just looking into this as I noticed recently some efforts of people trying to subscribe (actually on a b2evo blog and I need to approve each request). I normally use the standard settings which I believe is not allowing users to subscribe. Is there any advantage of allowing user registration? Clearly there is a risk involved.

Fred

[Reply]
Mike Reply:
March 1st, 2009 at 8:12 am
No real risk if they are a subscriber it is only other categories that can cause trouble and have seen people not have the settings right. If you allow users to default to author then they could post directly.

[Reply]
Brett McEllhiney on March 1, 2009 at 8:17 am

Thanks for the info Mike,

Just got through checking my blogs to make sure they were all set correctly. Luckily they were.

Thanks again,

Brett McEllhiney

Brett McEllhiney´s last blog post..Build a Niche Marketing Business – Step 14: Launch Your Site!

[Reply]
Doug Champigny
Twitter: Mentoring4U
on March 1, 2009 at 9:09 am

Powerful info, Mike! With blogs being free these days, one wonders why a hacker bothers, when they could set up their own blog in minutes and reap the benefits without the risks. Jerks.

Doug Champigny´s last blog post..Best Blog Installation Software Is Free!

[Reply]
Mike Reply:
March 1st, 2009 at 9:13 am
Actually if the blog that got hijacked had some pr to it they would get a benefit to point links to their content. Still jerks but was something in it for them.

[Reply]
Andre Arnett on March 1, 2009 at 10:15 am

This really is good information to have Mike. I will be checking to make sure that I have things in order. To bad there are jerks out there that have nothing better to do than cause trouble for others.

Andre Arnett´s last blog post..Let’s Get Started With The Internet

[Reply]
Earl Netwal
Twitter: EarlNetwal
on March 1, 2009 at 12:01 pm

This was a new concept to me, I looked at one of my blogs and see in the general settings that I’m set up to allow people to register and then if they do they are listed as subscribers. But I haven’t figured out how they would actually subscribe? There doesn’t appear to be any such link on my blog. In this case I am referring to my microbusinessspecialist.com/blog. On the other hand, I can imaging other blogs where it might be fun to get other people posting on a regular basis. How does one do this?

Earl Netwal´s last blog post..Money Word Matrix- An internet marketing idea you should steal.

[Reply]
Joel Osborne
Twitter: JoelOsborne
on March 1, 2009 at 12:51 pm

With WordPress being so powerful, allowing multiple users to have accounts and post, I can see how something like this can happen. Thank you Mike, it’s people like you that help everyone else protect their blogs.

Joel Osborne´s last blog post..2 Valuable Blogs to Read

[Reply]
Anne on March 1, 2009 at 1:38 pm

Thanks for the light-speed reply.
Yes they are using my name, I have just deleted another post. This is where my site meter says the timed visit came from. As for PR, the blog is PR2, hardly rocket science. Thanks for the advice, I’ll try to change my password yet again. For some reason my e-mail address was not acceptable! Ironic, isn’t it?

Domain Name (Unknown)
IP Address 204.62.53.# (Towson State University)
ISP Towson State University
Location
Continent : North America
Country : United States (Facts)
State : Maryland
City : Baltimore
Lat/Long : 39.3888, -76.6133 (Map)
Language English (U.S.)
en-us
Operating System Unknown Unknown
Browser Netscape 5.0
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Charlotte/1.0t; http://www.searchme.com/support/)

At least the content being posted is not ‘inappropriate’!

Thanks for the advice

Anne

[Reply]
Lonnie Minton on March 1, 2009 at 3:46 pm

Great post. I would never thought of these three different ways to have your blog hijacked.

I think I am ok with the last 2. I need to go and check on the first one. I don’t think that I have any users set up except for Administrator.

Thanks for the information. I hope that I am never hijacked and need it.

Lonnie Minton´s last blog post..Avoid These Affiliate Mistakes

[Reply]
Ian Glendinning on March 28, 2009 at 8:19 am

Mike, I have no evidence of posts being ripped off or spun, but I am getting hundreds of hits per day from that same Towson State University IP address that Anne quotes above.

When I’ve seen this behavior before it’s been a crawler indexing someones’s new search engine – ultimately good, but damned annoying effect on the traffic monitoring.

In this case, as yet, I can’t find out who it is (other than the IP above). Any clues ?

Ian Glendinning´s last blog post..Beautiful

[Reply]