'Ware Russian bots

[ellid]

Evidently Russian hackers with nothing better to do have been hijacking people's LJs and deleting the entries. They do this by "friending" and then trying to get users to click on a link. Usually the bot journal is either empty or all in Cyrillic.

Poor copperbadge just had this happen and is spending a lot of time and effort reconstructing his LJ. To avoid this (a lot of my academic work is backed up in private posts) I just backed up this LJ at www.ljbook.com. Took me about fifteen minutes to produce a free .pdf file with everything in this journal for the last four years...and for those who think I'm paranoid, someone named tybieantle attempted to "friend" me yesterday while I was at work. Fortunately I don't check my mail during the day and so didn't know what was happening until the journal had been suspended, but it was a close call....

Comments

[wishwords.livejournal.com]

What kind of link do they try to get you to click on? Is it their journal itself or a link to something "cool"?

[ellid.livejournal.com]

I believe it's #2. Also, they might send you a request to reset your password, which is what happened to copperbadge.

[rufus.livejournal.com]

It claims to be poetry, it is actually a key-logger.

[busaikko]

Does this only activate when you friend them back? I got friended by an immediately-deleted journal the other day and thought it was weird... but I never friend anyone back, so didn't think too much of it. Strange and scary.

[aunty_marion]

Double-check that you've validated your e-mail address that you use with your account, and if you think it's necessary then reset your password (only IF you've validated, though!). Also, back-up regularly, then if anything does happen you've still got everything...

[rowanheart24.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the heads up!

[snegurochka_lee]

Oh, no! Is that what happened to Sam?? :( I keep getting friended by these things, too, but am generally ignoring them. Gah! I've never used ljbook, though. Is it safe to put your password in? I'm paranoid. :)

[rufus.livejournal.com]

I've used LJbook a couple of times now, with no ill effects. (though after the most recent time I did reset my password.)

[orphandani.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the heads up!

[danabren.livejournal.com]

I get a Crazy Ivan every week or so. I ban_set them, and ignore them.

[h3salthea.livejournal.com]

..how do you do that?

[danabren.livejournal.com]

http://heldc.livejournal.com/525098.html

[mistress-kabuki.livejournal.com]

That is messed up. Why would someone do that in the first place?

Most of the time I friend people first, so I would be confused if someone I didn't know friended me without any notice.

Thanks for the heads up!

[ladymorgana13.livejournal.com]

I've had a dozen or so of those russian bots friend me.. I never friend back, I look at the user info, and if it's in russian I just ignore it. It's getting aggravating, but I notice for every new one that friends me, 3 or 4 disappear. WTF is up with this? I wish LJ had a way to block user. or prevent certain types from friending.

[persevero.livejournal.com]

Advice duly noted and followed - thank you! Surprisingly quick and painless (apart from the reflecting on how much drivel I've managed to produce).

[alphasarah.livejournal.com]

another backup option (I can never get ljbook to work for me) for mac users is a utility called sitesucker, which makes a local backup for you. takes quite a while, but worth it. (I back up all my blogs monthly.)