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What's this? (Site redirecting on phones)

Discussion in 'Life in General' started by porridge, 28 May 2016.

  1. porridge

    porridge Member

    Got a new phone and the website's gone wonky. Redirecting to crap.
     
  2. Kindler

    Kindler Active Member

    I take it that's bad crap and not good crap then
     
  3. CatInASuit

    CatInASuit Administrator Staff Member

    I've been notified and been having a look at this.

    Seems that the main URL is being redirected to youforgottorenewyourhosting.com which then redirects on to other spam sites. It only appears to be affecting mobiles by I wouldn't be surprised if it affected other things as well.

    I don't necessarily think it is a local virus as I've seen two other sites affected by it: motoringalliance.com and talkofthevillages.com both reporting the same symptoms. The only common thing I can see is that all the sites are hosted by GoDaddy, otherwise they all appear to be smaller specialist sites with no rhyme or reason as to why. It looks like a poison redirect somewhere though, but the traffic isn't getting to our server in the first place.

    Just for note, I've checked over the server and didn't find anything.
     
  4. tirial

    tirial Member

    Right, to give more details:

    We run several exploit checks and Wordfence and our site appears clear of malware. I did a full rebuild on Friday and found nothing. CIAS tore the server down and found nothing. More notably I discovered two other sites with the same issue, which don't use Wordpress and whose owners are also saying they come up clean.

    So we looked at the devices being used to access it:
    The site runs fine on desktops across every OS we've been able to try - mostly Windows and Linux.
    If you try to access the site from an Android device using Safari or Chrome, it gets redirected.
    If you try to access the site from an Android device using Safari or Chrome, with Data-saving on it appears fine, but no forms will submit.

    When we tried to access the site from an Android device using Opera, it was fine for 30 minutes, then starts redirecting.

    The redirect occurs when the signal to get our site is sent from the phone. It never reaches our site. Instead it is redirected at Wanadoo or some point after that. We have asked them to check their servers for malware.

    A full scan of the phone reveals nothing with either Avast or Looksmart. However the browsers that redirect are tied into the Android OS, so it may be malware in Android.

    Threads from the other sites:
    Site problems on AOL, IE - Page 9 - Motoring Alliance :: MINI Cooper Forums
    How do you contact the people at talkofthevillages? - Page 2 - Talk of The Villages

    As for who is behind this, we don't know, but here's the whois record for the site it usually redirects to:
    http://whois.domaintools.com/youforgottorenewyourhosting.com

    If anyone finds a solution, please let me know. Meanwhile all mobile promo for the site has been cut.
     
  5. CatInASuit

    CatInASuit Administrator Staff Member

    Looks like more and more of these things are coming to light.

    This one is from Lookout Security's blog.
     
  6. tirial

    tirial Member

    Just as a quick update. The new server does seem to have stopped the problem. This suggests that either our old host didn't patch a Cpanel hole when the urgent fix was released earlier in the year, or the IP addresses were targeted by Android malware and intercepted and redirected as the phone sent them out (which has been confirmed in at least one case, and interestingly the mobile provider gave early upgrades to the phones affected).

    If this happens again please tell us, through Twitter, or email, or something, as we can't fix what we don't know about.
     
  7. CatInASuit

    CatInASuit Administrator Staff Member

    It didn't help that when I got hit as well by the bug, I deleted a couple of apps that had started playing up and the issue went away. The problem also doesn't appear if you use Google caching in Chrome so they send you the pages instead of your phone requesting them directly, which just goes and masks the issue

    So yeah, mea culpa, I missed this one and didn't shift the server quickly enough once it started hitting and then screwed up the site move missing a load of files in the process.

    The new site doesn't seem to have the same problem, but as tirial said if anyone does find themselves getting redirected, please tell us.
     
  8. tirial

    tirial Member

    No reports of the bug on the new server. If you see it, please let us know urgently.
     
  9. rz3300

    rz3300 Member

    Well I am sorry to hear about the issues with the site on the phone, but thankfully it is working the old traditional route. I have not quite yet gotten to that point that a lot of other people seem to be at, where they basically use the phone as their personal computer, but I think I am slowly trending more towards that, although no matter how much I do I will always consider myself a bit old school. I am sure you will get it up and running, and so thanks for staying updates and keeping us updated.
     
  10. Kindler

    Kindler Active Member

    Well I didn't see it on the old site and I've not seen it on the new one.

    I've had a look on a phone once or twice and everything seems to be running ok, so nice job shifting it across.
     
  11. clair02

    clair02 Member

    I guess that's been resolved now. I've never experienced a problem here.
     

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