Was anyone else getting a scam about i phones coming up on this site last night and this morning? I could only get rid of it by closing it down, but it would reappear when I went back to the site. 

Seems ok now, so hopefully all sorted. 

Yes I tried numerous times today on my iphone just couldn't get into the site.  Switched on the PC and it is fine.  Just checked my phone and it is fine now.

Yes. I had a problem last night. The rogue site seemed to take over CTO and you couldn’t close it. No problem on the PC and it was fine on the iPhone later on in the evening. 

Just tried accessing CTO using my Samsung Android phone - not an iPhone - and I get the redirection too.  First a message from mk***.com, and then lots of error messages which might be failed redirects or might be my antivirus blocking things.

Might be something which only messes with phones (cos they're easier to mess with) and not with PCs.

I can access other websites without problem from my phone, which suggests that the problem is associated with CTO, and not with, for example, my phone company's systems.

I'd suggest that someone (Scotty?) checks the CTO website itself to see that it it hasn't been tampered with. 

 

Edited August 12, 20195 yr by snorbens_caleyman
deleted name of redirect server

i see a number of websites reporting this so it may have been a bit higher up the food chain .... nonetheless I am in the process of running a deep file scan

ok, initial scans show that we do not appear to have any sketchy files on the site (ie. any files that were injected or had contents altered from what they should be)  ... A full scan of our site has been completed and we are now doing a full scan of the entire server to be sure. This will take many hours to complete so will likely take most of the night. I did a bit of a google search and it does appear that there were instances yesterday and last night of 'ad hijacking' taking place on various sites. I do not believe this took place directly on our site, but the ads we were served may have been compromised at source and displayed wrongly. It also seems the ads that were compromised may only have been mobile ads as most of you report it didnt happen on PC. 

If anyone does encounter this again could you please screenshot it if possible and/or view the page source and send it to me here or via email at scotty@   the site url. if its something on the site we will get rid of it, if its infected ads we will pause them until cleaned by google, if its anything else we will do whatever is appropriate. 

 

Thanks Scotty, using the site no problem this morning. 

3 hours ago, Scotty said:

A full scan of our site has been completed and we are now doing a full scan of the entire server to be sure. This will take many hours to complete so will likely take most of the night. I did a bit of a google search and it does appear that there were instances yesterday and last night of 'ad hijacking' taking place on various sites.

Thanks for checking, Scotty.  I saw only a couple of reports of it last night, but there are many more reports now, 12 hours later, including the fan forums for AFC Bournemouth and Middlesbrough, and the well-known car forum Pistonheads.

CTO seems to be fine now, and my phone's AV reckons that it is OK too. I might start looking at ad-blockers or other browsers - I have seen mention of Brave and Firefox Focus.

7 hours ago, snorbens_caleyman said:

I might start looking at ad-blockers or other browsers - I have seen mention of Brave and Firefox Focus.

Whilst we dont have any scripts that detect and then present a message when ad blockers are used, we do rely heavily on our advertisements to finance the site costs each year (hosting on VPS, software maintenance, domain names, 3rd party extensions, etc.) so would prefer users not to use them if possible. Even when ads are not clicked, we do rack up smaller amounts based on the number of times they are shown (impressions). When ad-blockers are used, the impressions get lower. 

We do have an ad-free option of the site where users can pay a small sum to become site sponsors and have all ads removed at source. seems to work well for those who use it.