Google has decided, today, that RadicalBreeze.com contains malware. And will harm your computer.
And they display a gigantic red page stating that you, along with your first born, will be slaughtered in the night -- to any man, woman or child who visits this website with Chrome or via a Google website.
The only thing available from RadicalBreeze.com is Illumination Software Creator.
Which is, most certainly, not malware.
[Unless you modify the word "malware" to mean "something significantly more advanced than a project that Google started but then gave up on because it was too hard".]
You'll notice on that fancy "you will be punched in the face by a goblin" page above that Google provides a link to their "Safe Browsing diagnostic page" for RadicalBreeze.com.
This page lists all of the problems Google found with the website in question.
To the right is a screenshot you can see. Allow me to sum up the problems that Google has with RadicalBreeze.com.
"Site is listed as suspicious - visiting this web site may harm your computer."
Well that's no good! Luckily Google's nifty little tool will tell me what was suspicious so I can fix the problem.
"Of the 21 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 0 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2012-07-25, and suspicious content was never found on this site within the past 90 days."
Just to sum up:
RadicalBreeze.com is malicious and suspicious. Also, RadicalBreeze.com is not at all malicious nor suspicious... and never has been.
Right.
Now I just need to let Google know about the problem so they can fix their own system (which is either broken... or has been deliberately modified to block RadicalBreeze.com... in which case... Google.com is a malicious website).
They do claim to provide simple steps to request a "malware review". Those steps are as follows:
Request a malware review:
- On the Webmaster Tools Home page, select the site you want.
- Click Health, and then click Malware.
- Click Request a review.
This website is not there. And it won't let me add the website.
There is also no "Health" link (or anything that looks like it) on the "Webmaster Tools Home page" that I can click on.
The only form of contact they provide (including email, phone, IM, mailing address, etc.) is "noreply@google.com".
Which. As you might have guessed, will get you no reply.
So there is a problem. But there is no problem.
And there is a solution. But there is no solution.
Luckily you can contact them. But you cannot contact them.
Awesome.
So I am writing this now. Because the only way it seems that you can get Google to fix anything is to make a big deal about it in public.
UPDATE:
A few hours after I posted this article... my website was actually hacked. Looking through the logs, here's my best guess as to what happened:
- A backdoor was discovered in the Plesk control panel that was in use on that server. A backdoor which I did not know about.
- Google either knew about it or noticed many servers on the same network with the issue that *had* been compromised.
- My server was then deemed as "suspicious" because of that.
- I responded with this post.
- Somebody noticed it, noticed why it was labeled as such... and took advantage of the moment.
- Resulting in a little iframe being embedded in the bottom of the site that was fairly gnarly.
Which... lame. Sometimes the internet can be a very, very lame place.
But, luckily, I had you guys to help me get to the bottom of it! Things are mostly fixed now (radicalbreeze.com is pointing to lunduke.com right now -- or at least it will be once the DNS is updated everywhere -- and I'm working to salvage and fix what I can there).
Filed under: Illumination, Radical Breeze, Tech Stuff |
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That's right. We pulled it off. Because we are awesome.