Has early-retirement forum been hacked?

[audreyh1]

I've had it happen three times today. I finish submitting a reply, or I click on a forum or try to start a post, and I get redirected to another site with a big "Congratulations you have won $1000" - something to do with my iPad.

Even clicking on Admin forum made it happen.

I've back up without clicking on any popup (which doesn't seem to complete). So exited Safari. And relaunched to get back to the forum.

 

[COcheesehead]

I've had it happen three times today. I finish submitting a reply, or I click on a forum or try to start a post, and I get redirected to another site with a big "Congratulations you have won $1000" - something to do with my iPad.

Even clicking on Admin forum made it happen.

I've back up without clicking on any popup (which doesn't seem to complete). So exited Safari. And relaunched to get back to the forum.

Me too.

 

[Janet H]

Thanks for the report. I am not aware of any issues although will do some digging.

Can you tell me if you run any ad blockers?

 

[sengsational]

I just came to the site after not being on in many days. I got a 'cloudflare always available' message, and a retry put me right here. I'm only posting to see if it acts weird.

Edit: posted fine.

BTW: I use privacy badger to prevent tracking.

 

[SecondCor521]

Not getting the description that the OP is getting, but I have been getting intermittent "site down" messages from cloudflare (?) with a 521 error code and suggesting I, as a customer, retry in a few minutes. If I were the site owner it suggests contacting my hosting company letting them know my site is down.

Win 8.1 up to date
Chrome 58.something
AdBlock
Starbucks/Google internet service

Other sites have been fine, this site has been fine for me today up until the last hour or so.

 

[Janet H]

Cloudflare is a security service we use and sometimes slow server responses result in the message you have noted. It sometimes happens when demand is high (evenings...)

 

[Ready]

I just got the IPad offer for the first time after opening this post. Weird.

 

[audreyh1]

Thanks for the report. I am not aware of any issues although will do some digging.

Can you tell me if you run any ad blockers?

No Ad blockers.

Happened again a few minutes ago when I hit the reply button on a thread.

pulsseads.com is the site

Or exeternity.com. So there are two sites you might be directed to.

 

[respond2u]

seems ok for me now.

 

[Rambler]

Ive been getting the same thing, but on a different website (their blog portion). Never here though.

 

[Janet H]

Can you please be sure to share info about what sort of device you are using and what browser? So far it seems to be affecting iPad folks only.

i suspect this is caused by an ad, loading slowly or possibly hijacking your browser. The faster we can ID the ad, the faster we can have it blocked so urls are also helpful

 

[2017ish]

I had no problems today. (Running windows 10 & up-to-date chrome with adblock plus, privacy badger, and javascript popup blocker, although relaxed security for this site)

 

[Ready]

I just got the ad again. I'm using an IPad Pro, Safari (not the iOS app). It starts with a pop up ad, then forces me to a full screen ad.

 

[audreyh1]

iPad mini 3 running iOS 10.2.1. I'm about to update to 10.3.1

I'm using Safari to view early-retirement.org. I don't know the Safari version - I suppose it's tied to the iOS version.

The thing is - I don't notice any particular Ad! I don't click on any Ad. How can something just redirect to another page when you click on a "reply" button, click on a link to a thread, or just refresh the recent threads page?

 

[Just_Steve]

Mac, Safari 10.0.3, AdBlock. No issues.

 

[audreyh1]

I'm not seeing the problem on my Mac laptop at all. No Ad blocker there either.

Just on my iPad.

 

[aja8888]

Chromebook, running Adblock, no issues.

 

[hesperus]

chrome, running adblock, no changes noticed here

 

[audreyh1]

Interesting - haven't had a problem the last 15-20 mins. Didn't use my iPad for about an hour, then came back to it.

Maybe this is gone - we can only hope!

 

[donheff]

Ive been getting the same thing, but on a different website (their blog portion). Never here though.

Same here on my phone. Some kind of iOS specific popup. It has happened on Facebook links and links in emails. I have had to clear the underlying app out of memory to get back to what I was doing. PITA.


Edit: Sounds like this may be a Safari specific popup hijacker. The following thread talks primarily about how to deal with it on a Mac but in a comment one user suggests that on a phone you should kill the app the way I suggested (double tap the home key, then swipe the app off to clear it from memory). Don't click on the same link again.

Sounds like this may be a Safari specific popup hijacker. The following thread talks primarily about how to deal with it on a Mac but in a comment one user suggests that on a phone you should kill the app the way I suggested (double tap the home key, then swipe the app off to clear it from memory). Don't click on the same link again.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7271153?start=0&tstart=0

 

[Test Account]

Test reply test.

 

[RunningBum]

I was getting some kind of pop up at times yesterday. I forget exactly what it said but something about trying to take me to another page, but I had an OK or cancel option and I always picked cancel. Sounds like the same thing but my system seemed to catch it before taking me there. Seemed to be on only one e-r.org topic page but I don't remember which one and I didn't have time to pursue. Window 10 running MS IE 11.xx. I don't think this was a Safari specific incident.

 

[audreyh1]

Interesting - haven't had a problem the last 15-20 mins. Didn't use my iPad for about an hour, then came back to it.

Maybe this is gone - we can only hope!

No problems today either.

Yesterday, in addition to closing the Safari tab that had this forum site, I reset my iPad.

I haven't had any problems since.

 

[Janet H]

Sounds like this may be a Safari specific popup hijacker. The following thread talks primarily about how to deal with it on a Mac but in a comment one user suggests that on a phone you should kill the app the way I suggested (double tap the home key, then swipe the app off to clear it from memory). Don't click on the same link again.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7271153?start=0&tstart=0

[/QUOTE]

I agree - after looking at this fairly extensively, we have come to the same conclusion. Resetting safari should solve the issue. AND..... if it's been a while since you restarted your device that would be a great idea as well.

 

[CaptTom]

I loved the quote from Apple: This is not a virus. No, no, it's just a malicious program that installed itself in a component of the Apple iOS operating system without your knowledge or permission. Nothing to see here. Move along.