Pool theme showing malware ads
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Hi
All of our posts are showing nasty flashing “Congratulations You Won!” malware ads at the bottom of posts. It’s crafty though as I can’t see the ads when I’m logged in, but log out and there they are on every post.
I’m guessing the theme has been hacked in some way as there’s nothing to see if you edit the post.
How can I report this to get it cleaned up? Does anyone else use the ‘Pool’ theme and have the same problem?
Very grateful for any advice.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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This is the blog
http://seasidesisters.co.uk/Example of a post with the ad
http://seasidesisters.co.uk/2011/11/08/bunting-stories/ -
I don’t see these – could you contact support@wordpress.com and send a screenshot? That would really help.
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You can most likely see it though if you completely log out of WordPress and then look at a post
http://seasidesisters.co.uk/2011/11/08/bunting-stories/It was a friend who alerted me to it. I never would have spotted it as I’m always logged in.
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Thanks tandava108!
Yes, particularly annoying as we’re getting quite a few visitors today and publicity for that story.
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Occasionally one of WordPress’s affiliates will run an advert that they think is unsuitable, and WordPress will get that advert removed from the blogs. I hope that this is one of those cases. I would wait and see what their response is before leaving WordPress.
If they say that they are happy with this type of advert and will keep running it then you have the option of the no ads upgrade, but that will cost you nearly $30 a year.
I am really hoping that this is an advertiser trying it on and WordPress will stop these adverts.
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Yes what I mean is that if WordPress deem this kind of ad suitable, they are not a company I want to do business with.
I’m not convinced yet though. This article suggests something has gone wrong rather than it being a regular ad.
http://www.uk2.net/blog/battlefield-wordpress-fighting-malware/ -
Its not impossible that your blog has been hacked, but nearly all wordpress hacks are against self-hosted wordpress.org sites using old versions of the software. It will be interesting to see what the staff say.
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Yes that’s what I thought too, so assumed it was the theme getting hacked rather than my blog.
Anyway, I’ve paid the $30 for no ads as a fix, and you’re right – it’s gone.
I didn’t know that ads as nasty as that could appear, and I don’t want to take the risk. It’s hugely damaging to have your brand aligned with that kind of racket.
If WordPress is unable to reassure me that they will act on and exclude ads like this one, I’ll be looking into changing blog hosts next year. That would be a shame as I’ve always been quite an advocate for them.
Many thanks for you help tandava108, I really appreciate it.
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Yeah, that’s definitely not the type of ad we want to run.
We have reported it to our ad provider.
If you ever see an similarly lousy ad, please send a screenshot with a description of where you found it to support@wordpress.com
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