MAJOR WEBSITE ISSUE

UPDATE 8/19/08: The server that was hosting my website was recently hacked. Thanks to my new best friend Tim, the affected files on my site have been repaired, so it appears the crisis has been averted. Still, I highly recommend that you install some type of anti-virus software on your computer – I’ve done everything I can on my end to keep this from happening again, but that doesn’t mean I’m hack-proof. Even if I were hack-proof, you may happen to come across an entirely different website that’s been affected, or accidentally open an email with spyware in it. You can get a free anti-virus app here, I used to use this one myself when I had a PC:

http://free.avg.com/

Thanks also to my friend Andy for staying up late with me on the phone, helping me to get this mess straightened out!

UPDATE 8/20/08: I spoke to a client today and she mentioned her computer was infected with a virus sometime within the last few days – and she had NOT been to my website at all recently. So apparently, there are also some other viruses currently making the rounds. The particular virus she got is causing her computer to spontaneously turn itself off and on, making it difficult to fix because she can’t stay online long enough to look for a removal tool. She was running McAfee anti-virus software, and the virus still got through. I can’t emphasize it enough, please try to protect yourself and your data as much as you can – at minimum, back up your data to other media (it only takes a few minutes to burn a disc full of files) and get some anti-virus software (better yet, run more than one). If you have anti-virus software installed and don’t have it scheduled to run regular scans on your entire system, do it – even if you don’t have a virus, it will help catch other things like tracking cookies that hackers can use to track your keystrokes, among other things. Nothing is foolproof, but it doesn’t hurt to try!