I just learned something new... that my blog was mistakenly marked as malicious. I didn't even know this could happen. Most of you probably didn't know this about my blog unless you have McAfee software on your computer (thanks to Kimba at the Caffeinated Book Reviewer for pointing this out to me). Turns out since I kept changing my template on Blogger last night like at least 20 times (if you missed why I did that read about my template and comment crazyness ) it confused McAfee (at least this is what I think happened). You may not even know it, but yours could be marked too. If my followers had never pointed it out I would just be blogging like normal.
I learned that you can check if your blog has malware at McAfee Site Advisor. If you go to this link there is a box on the right hand side where you can put your blog name or any blog for that matter and see their rating from McAfee. I did this and of course my blog was marked (I think it might've thought I was hacked). So then I went on the hunt as to why McAfee marks blogs as Malicious. I didn't really find any specific reasons listed anywhere. There are a lot of reasons. I am sure though that it is because there was too much activity with my template last night.
I took off each widget one by one and kept scanning the site to see if one of those was causing it. The site continued to be marked. I went on the hunt to see how to check my blog for malware. There are three greats sites I learned about here that you can use to scan your blog. They are Sucuri, Virus Total, and Comodo. All three showed my blog is clean.
So now what's the next step? I went to the McAfee site and set up an account. I emailed them, started a ticket to get them to help me get my blog marked green again. It is really annoying because followers who usually come might not click to come into my blog and new followers are probably scared off completely. Hopefully I caught it fast enough. I don't know if this is a blogger issue or not. Honestly I have no idea how long my blog as been marked as Malicious.
Today McAfee already closed my ticket. My blog is in the green!! Yeah!! It really didn't take long for them to switch my blog from red to green in less then 24 hours. I still have some fixing to do on my blog from screwing around with the template but slowly it's all coming back together.
Be sure to check your blog... you never know if readers aren't able to get to your site!
Thanks for pointing this out! Good to know.
ReplyDeleteThis is crazy.. I had no idea how this happened or even that it could happen.
DeleteJust checked my blog and it is okay. I've never seen this with a blog before, scary!
ReplyDeleteI have seen this on the internet before. But I just thought these sites were really dangerous with spam. Now I wonder if some blogs were marked wrong too.
DeleteMy blog is okay, but I have encountered a couple of my favorite blogs who were all of a sudden marked "malicious".
ReplyDeleteIt odd that it can happen just all of a sudden, and only because I was messing around with the template!
DeleteHow awful! This would totally freak me out. I'm so glad you could get it resolved :)
ReplyDeleteNinja Girl
Great advice, something I've never thought of. Totally sharing this! Glad you got everything fixed.
ReplyDeleteI NEVER thought of this either. I didn't even think it could happen to a little blog like mine!
DeleteThat's so weird and scary! Never got that message myself when visiting you. I am so bad with computer things. My laptop's gotten viruses quite a bit and I've had to pay to have it fixed. the last time the guy even discovered a new-to-him virus on it! Yikes!
ReplyDeleteGlad you got the problem solved though!
I think that most of my followers never encountered it. You would have to have the software on your computer to catch it.
DeleteThis is nonsense! As in,why mark it malicious at all if the blog has nothing to do with "malicious" spyware and stuff? God! I'm going to check mine now.
ReplyDeleteI know! I am not even an affiliate of any website where I get a portion if someone buys something. So I mean I don't even spam people to buy anything. Nuts
DeleteThis is great to know, just checked out my blog too! (yay it's good) I didn't even think that changing your blog around could bring up red flags - it does make sense though, I have to keep that in mind in future. I'm glad McAfee resolved the issue so quickly too.
ReplyDeleteMe too...I am really surprised at all of this. I don't think it's fair they can just mark my blog because I was messing around. Mind you I changed the template like 20 times and that is no joke so maybe the internet thought I was being hacked. They didn't actually respond to me so I couldn't ask questions. They just marked my blog green and that was that.
DeleteWow! Thanks so much for sharing. I would've gone nuts if that happened to me!
ReplyDeleteKimberly @ Once Upon a YA Book
Glad you were able to learn something from this. Who knew?
DeleteAlso, it could be just McAfee trying to make you/us buy more protection, security upgrades and stuff.
ReplyDeleteEeps! I need to check it out!
ReplyDeleteYea.. it's crazy Alisa!!!
DeleteThis is definitely troubling, so thanks for sharing! My blog says not enough information but I'm hoping it won't ever go red. Glad you solved the issue!
ReplyDeleteAlise @ Readers in Wonderland
So your blog must be marked "grey". This is crazy!
DeleteSo I'm glad you got it all fixed, and I checked mine, everything was green.
ReplyDeleteGREEN!! Yeah!!!!!
DeleteThat's horrible! I'm so glad you managed to get this fixed, Angela. I know Blogger blogs have been going through TONS of problems (like getting deleted without warning), so I'd say it was their fault. I'll be sure to give my blog a check to see if everything's fine, so thanks for the tips!
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome. I had never heard about this till now. I am really looking into wordpress now and have even heard people are backing up their blogs there.
DeleteYikes, sucks that you had to go through that. Thanks for the links. I checked and my blog is safe. :)
ReplyDeleteI wonder if there are other antivirus software out there they we all should worry about?
DeleteThanks so much for sharing this with us. I never use McAfee, but that's great that Kimba pointed it out. I know Norton is another one that a lot of people use. AVG is a free virus protection service so people use it a lot as well. I love that we really can depend on each other to help out like that. Jaclyn @ JC's Book Haven.
ReplyDeleteI know.. if she had never told me this I would've never known. My house is all Apple computers so no McAfee on those. I think more people should spread the word about this just so that people know to test their blog links.
DeleteScary! Glad it is all resolved now. Thanks for the links and showing us how to check this out :)
ReplyDeleteI am so glad it's helping everyone!
DeleteThis happened to me but by Norton. A visitor pointed it out to me and I found out when I did my amazon gift card giveaway for my blogaversary, some reason norton thought it was a scam site. I had to go through and authenticate it with them and have it re-evaluated and now it's deemed safe :)
ReplyDeleteI just went and checked Norton! Luckily they have my site as not tested. Which is good I guess.. it means people can get to my site.
DeleteI told a blog earlier that this was happening to them. Also, it wouldn't let me share their link on FB, either, as FB as decided they were spam. I wonder if those 2 things are connected somehow.
ReplyDeleteI definitely recommend everyone use the McAfee Site Advisor extension. I've used it for years.