The battle for the Tower... or Us VS. "Plants Vs Zombies"

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Sep 1st, 2011, 02:50 PM
Kc

The battle for the Tower... or Us VS. "Plants Vs Zombies"

The war is over! Many battles have been fought.
The enemy: Possibly Popcap games rooted in the arcade.

As many of you know we were attacked at the very core of the forum at approximately Thursday 9 am PST. The battle quickly spread from the arcade into the forum, and into the main website. Every page that had code was quickly and deliberately infected. Here's a quick log from the attack:

Thu Sep 1 16:07:13 2011 1 83.133.120.46 325 /./public_html/index.html a _ o r waylandprod ftp 0 * c

The IP was traced back to Germany. Any more information is yet to be seen. Damage was being done through FTP and quickly it spread. We caught it early, but every page on the forum and the database were infected. With the help of J0be, we set about deleting everything from the server that could contain code, and then copying things back over again. We ran into a massive error when trying to remove the infected files from the server, but a quick skirmish in SSH sent those files burning away.

So, thanks to many different backups and a daily midnight database dump, we are back.

If there are remnants of battle, or things that don't work. Please let us know and we'll do what we can to clean it up. BIG Thanks to j0be for helping root through the many problems and helping the tower to re-open its doors.

LAST NOTE! If you were here when it went down, run a virus scan to be sure you're safe. Microsoft Security Essentials works great and is free. Check %appdata%/Microsoft/ - And make sure you don't see anything weird created today as a 2nd safe measure.
Sep 1st, 2011, 02:52 PM
AdrianHD

Out of every game in the arcade, it WOULD be Plants vs. Zombies, huh? Just too ironic haha.

Good job to you and J0be! I'll take a look around and send a word back if I see anything!
Sep 1st, 2011, 02:54 PM
Kc

Quote:

Originally Posted by AdrianHD

Out of every game in the arcade, it WOULD be Plants vs. Zombies, huh? Just too ironic haha.

Good job to you and J0be! I'll take a look around and send a word back if I see anything!

Needless to say, the arcade is missing some games, but we'll be putting the safe ones back in soon
Sep 1st, 2011, 02:54 PM
GD_Elite

Nice job Kc and j0be.

Just a shame that my arcade highscores are gone again. :( I got 42 on simon.
Sep 1st, 2011, 02:55 PM
Kc

Quote:

Originally Posted by GD_Elite

Nice job Kc and j0be.

Just a shame that my arcade highscores are gone again. :( I got 42 on simon.

If you got that between midnight and now, I'm sorry. Your highscore is MIA.
Sep 1st, 2011, 03:02 PM
GD_Elite

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kc

If you got that between midnight and now, I'm sorry. Your highscore is MIA.

Yeh it was. The game itself still remembers the highscore. But at the moment I can't submit a new highscore, because I don't have a "security token". I guess this is something that is yet to be fixed.
Sep 1st, 2011, 03:02 PM
Kc

Quote:

Originally Posted by GD_Elite

Yeh it was. The game itself still remembers the highscore. But at the moment I can't submit a new highscore, because I don't have a "security token". I guess this is something that is yet to be fixed.

Hmmm. Interesting. Something to fix. Thanks!
Sep 1st, 2011, 03:41 PM
cupcakezombie

I played PvZ last night but not at the time it all went down, but about 6 hours before. Should I do a major check of my comp or is just a virus scan and clean up ok?
Sep 1st, 2011, 04:19 PM
Kc

Quote:

Originally Posted by cupcakezombie

I played PvZ last night but not at the time it all went down, but about 6 hours before. Should I do a major check of my comp or is just a virus scan and clean up ok?

Most likely you are fine. Nothing happened until 9 am this morning. P V Z may not have been a culprit at that time.
Sep 1st, 2011, 10:24 PM
usmcludwig

*Sigh* This battle may be over...but the Battle of the Arcade rages on...

HAVE AT YOU!
Sep 2nd, 2011, 06:00 AM
GD_Elite

I think these are related to the hack, but cannot be sure.

The games undead end, dynomite, zombie golf, zelda invaders and zombies destruction won't let me submit my score, and only give me the score of 0 on the highscores. I played zombie golf yesterday before the problems, and then I had no problems submitting my score. I'm not sure if this problem is just me.

Also, I think the Highscore-champions section at the top of the arcade home page is broken. At time of typing it says nikvoodoo has 8 highscores, Luna Guardian has 4 and usmcludwig has 4. Whereas when looking at the number 1 rankings on their pages nikvoodoo has 5, luna guardian has 4, usmcludwig has 3. To make the toal up to 16, j0be has 2 and Kc and me have 1 each. Is this meant to be the amount of number 1 rankings, or something else? I could not find any relevance to the 844 numbers in other sections. Perhaps games that have been deleted are still being counted, because I think nik had the highscores in alot of those.

Finally, I'm no technical wizard, but if popcap games were the problem, should bejeweled 2 be deleted as well?
Sep 2nd, 2011, 07:02 AM
j0be

@Kc the place to check is actually %appdata% my phone autocorrected
Sep 2nd, 2011, 08:32 AM
Kc

Quote:

Originally Posted by GD_Elite

I think these are related to the hack, but cannot be sure.

The games undead end, dynomite, zombie golf, zelda invaders and zombies destruction won't let me submit my score, and only give me the score of 0 on the highscores.

I'll look into those-

Quote:

Originally Posted by GD_Elite

Also, I think the Highscore-champions section at the top of the arcade home page is broken. At time of typing it says nikvoodoo has 8 highscores, Luna Guardian has 4 and usmcludwig has 4. Whereas when looking at the number 1 rankings on their pages nikvoodoo has 5, luna guardian has 4, usmcludwig has 3. To make the toal up to 16, j0be has 2 and Kc and me have 1 each. Is this meant to be the amount of number 1 rankings, or something else? I could not find any relevance to the 844 numbers in other sections. Perhaps games that have been deleted are still being counted, because I think nik had the highscores in alot of those.

You're right. The calculator was qualifying games that weren't active. We had soft-deleted them, so the high scores were still there. They have now been hard deleted.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GD_Elite

Finally, I'm no technical wizard, but if popcap games were the problem, should bejeweled 2 be deleted as well?

The popcap games that were a problem, or could have been a problem have since been removed. This bejeweled and big money are from trusted sources and don't have any malicious code with them.
Sep 2nd, 2011, 08:33 AM
nikvoodoo

Quote:

Originally Posted by GD_Elite

I think these are related to the hack, but cannot be sure.

The games undead end, dynomite, zombie golf, zelda invaders and zombies destruction won't let me submit my score, and only give me the score of 0 on the highscores. I played zombie golf yesterday before the problems, and then I had no problems submitting my score. I'm not sure if this problem is just me.

I've had no problems submitting high scores to any of those games (I played through all of them and either was able to register a high score or get the message saying it won't register more than one high score per user).
Sep 2nd, 2011, 09:04 AM
Kc

Originally Posted by GD_Elite
I think these are related to the hack, but cannot be sure.

The games undead end, dynomite, zombie golf, zelda invaders and zombies destruction won't let me submit my score, and only give me the score of 0 on the highscores.

----------------
Make sure you have "Remember Me" checked. I think j0be might need to add his code fix again for the arcade, but I'm not sure.
Sep 2nd, 2011, 09:08 AM
GD_Elite

I'm definitely signed in and I'm not having problems with being signed out. I have played every game today, and those are the only 5 games that have done it. If you look at my arcade profile, it says n/a for those game regardless of what I do. But then I can go straight onto a different game and submit a highscore for that.
Sep 2nd, 2011, 09:10 AM
Kc

Quote:

Originally Posted by GD_Elite

I'm definitely signed in and I'm not having problems with being signed out. I have played every game today, and those are the only 5 games that have done it. If you look at my arcade profile, it says n/a for those game regardless of what I do. But then I can go straight onto a different game and submit a highscore for that.

What browser are you using? Just trying to narrow down what it might be.
Sep 2nd, 2011, 09:19 AM
GD_Elite

Using safari.
Sep 2nd, 2011, 09:23 AM
Kc

Quote:

Originally Posted by GD_Elite

Using safari.

Ok, try it now...
Sep 2nd, 2011, 09:28 AM
GD_Elite

Just tried zombie golf and it works. Thanks :) I will try the others now.

EDIT: No luck on dynomite though...
Sep 2nd, 2011, 09:32 AM
Kc

Quote:

Originally Posted by GD_Elite

Just tried zombie golf and it works. Thanks :)I will try the others now.

There were some game data folders that were missing, but now they are there. Let me know if any one in particular doesn't work.
Sep 2nd, 2011, 09:35 AM
GD_Elite

Undead end works but dynomite doesnt.

zombies destruction works.

Trying zelda invaders now
Sep 2nd, 2011, 09:36 AM
Kc

Quote:

Originally Posted by GD_Elite

Undead end works but dynomite doesnt.

Trying zombies destruction and zelda invaders now

Just fixed Dynomite.
Sep 2nd, 2011, 09:42 AM
GD_Elite

Well that makes them all fixed. Thank you very much.
Sep 2nd, 2011, 10:30 AM
yarri

As resident medic I'll be standing by with the 1st aid kits.
Sep 2nd, 2011, 06:50 PM
megan<3

i swear... ppl these days!! but great job Kc!!! O_o