Urgent. Malicious code on my gamerlaunch site

 It was a big issue and GL worked pretty darned hard to get it sorted .. I think the problem was that not only did the message occur on *some* individual websites (perhaps those on specific GL domains?) but it also occurred, at least for some of us, when we attempted to access the support forums themselves.  So, at least from a personal point of view, I would imagine some people who considered reporting it here, found that they couldn't unless they ignored the warning. 

A few of us used the GL Facebook page to communicate the problem, and also via our own websites using the support chat bubble.

This *was* related to Google .. it was their error message.  I use Firefox, not chrome, but still got the Google warning. 

Unfortunately it sounds like Google weren't initially particularly helpful in providing information to GL.  Basically it's a "there's something wrong" without the explanation.  Which makes it difficult to track down what that "something" is in a short period of time :p

I don't know specifically what happened, but judging by GL's messages, it sounds as if possibly it was down to one (or more) of the GL hosted sites - ie, a customer made site, that triggered it.  Not GL's own pages. 

Obviously it must have been sorted, as the site seems to now be back to normal:

https://transparencyreport.google.com/safe-browsing/search?url=https:%2F%2Fwww.gamerlaunch.com%2F

Hi all! We're sorted. Unfortunately, in the end Google was zero help. We did scans, looked for issues and resubmitted for review when we were confident that things were clean. Then Google took 72 hours or so to update it on their end. We did take the opportunity to add some more spam/bot fighting tools and to clean up a bit of spam but ultimately these things were not really related to the type of issue Google was reporting. Our best guess is some sort of false positive. So, the fire drill wasn't a total loss in terms of forward motion since we improved our tool set a bit. Thanks for adding your perspective Poison and thank you all for hanging tight while we worked through this!

-Stephen

Hello. I still have a lot of people telling me that the false positive still appears. And they dont want to visit the website and make applications. Why is that?

 It just started happening again yesterday ... it's starting to get a bit annoying :p

Out of interest .. do you use your own domain name or one of GL's?  We've not had any problems with our guild site, but we use our own domain name so wondering if that's something to do with it (ie, not being tarred with the same brush, as it were)

PS .. it does depend on which browser you use, too.  Firefox and Chrome seem to get the problem, but Edge doesn't.  I don't know if that proves Edge is better or worse .. :p

Hi, 

Yep, we are continuing to work with Google to figure out what it is they are seeing. We have reached out to our contacts at Google, and we still haven't received a definitive answer.  Unfortunately, they are less than helpful. We have checked, rechecked and will continue to keep looking. There's nothing we have found that should cause any concern.  We know this is frustrating for all members. We will keep pressing Google and not stop looking.  Everyone at Gamer Launch appreciates your continued support. 

Thank you,

Gamer Launch Team

 I am not using my own domain, just the gamerlaunch subdomain. The funny thing is that on my computer I dont see any warning, but others tell me they cant open it. 

 Hi,

Chrome will let you access the site by clicking the Details link in the warning message and then select Visit This Site link. In Firefox you will need to open the browser menu> Select Privacy & Security in the left column> Scroll down to Security and uncheck "Block dangerous and deceptive content." 

Microsoft Edge is even less picky .. it just lets you straight through with no messages at all :P

I suppose a workaround, if you want to go to the trouble, might be to have your own domain name and use that instead.  Although it's hardly ideal.

Microsft Edge and Opera both work. 

Kyle

Just to add to Poisonenvy's reply, Our site uses a custom domain name and we had zero reports of any issues regarding access to our site. 

 I suspect that it's a "being tarred with the same brush" scenario.  Google is obviously picking up on something on one of the sites on GL .. and it's obviously a site using one of GL's sub-domains.  That then triggers the block of everything, I'm guessing, on at least that same domain. 

I'm aware that GL use several domains as options when you're creating your site (guildlaunch, gamerlaunch, wowlaunch, etc, etc), so it's possible that they could narrow it down further if it's always the same domain name that is being blocked (unless Google have somehow lumped together all of the domains owned by GL).

I suppose one way to test this theory is that .. if it happens again, a site that is affected by it changes their selected sub-domain.  I have a test site so can always test that theory.  Hopefully though, they've tracked it down and it won't happen again.