IOL working on site problems

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Inedpendent On Line logo - IOL logo

Published Jul 10, 2012

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As many IOL readers may already be well aware we are experiencing some issues on the site this morning. This won't affect all readers but those that are will be presented with a warning that the site may contain malware or suspicious activity.

This warning is presented because Google, which routinely scans websites for suspicious activity, recently found something on IOL that it felt was a problem.

We have investigated the problems raised and have determined that the origin of the problem is content provided to us by a third party. We have terminated those incoming content streams with immediate effect and have asked Google for a site review to ensure that all problems have been removed.

It is important to point out that, despite some spurious reports that IOL had been hacked, there is absolutely no connection between this issue and hacking activity. It is also important to note that the IOL site is not “down”. The site is still fully functional.

This is a temporary problem which we are working on fixing as soon as possible.

Our apologies to all readers that had to contend with this problem this morning. And thank you to all the readers that took the time to contact us to let us know about the problem.

Alastair Otter

Editor

 

Update 2:45pm

At around 10am this morning we switched off all incoming content streams that we identified as potentially containing suspicious code. We then contacted Google to re-review the site to ensure that all the problems had been removed. 

We are now waiting on Google's review of the site an the malware warnings will remain in place until Google has completed this process. At this time we do not know how long this will take. 

We believe that the site is free of any malicious code at this time. We do not encourage readers to routinely ignore these types on malware warnings on the web but for those that do opt to enter the site we are confiendent they will nort be adversely affected. We do, however, encourage you to use caution when clicking on links on the site for the next while. Anything that looks suspicious ought to be avoided. 

In general all links to editorial content can be assumed to be safe. 

  Update: 8:45pm

Good news: Shortly after 8pm tonight Google completed its review of the IOL site and confirmed that the site was free of malware. As previously stated we had removed all suspect code from the site by 10am this morning but the review process took longer than hoped. Again, our apologies for the inconvenience.

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