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

[Kc]

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.

[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!

[Kc]

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

[GD_Elite]

Nice job Kc and j0be.

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

[Kc]

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.

[GD_Elite]

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.

[Kc]

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!

[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?

[Kc]

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.

[usmcludwig]

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

HAVE AT YOU!