How safe from viruses and hackers am I when using the Milsurps.Com web site?

Today’s Internet exposes computer users and the web sites they access, to a wide range of malicious pieces of infectious software code, designed to attack either, or both platforms.

Many Internet gun web sites offer little in the way of anything, to insulate their members against these kinds of dangerous activities. In fact, we've been advised by members of one popular gun site currently carrying a software virus, that when their members click on a certain link, it actually transmits a common Trojan horse software virus to their desktop computer, thereby infecting the user’s computer.

We at Milsurps.Com take the safety and security of our members very seriously.

Toward that end and after weeks of internal testing, we've invested some of your donations and implemented an on-line firewall that insulates our site (and you) from these threats. CloudProxy (Sucuri’s Website Firewall) is a cloud-based protective layer, which automatically protects our website from brute force attacks, malware, DDoS, blacklisting and many other issues that webmasters face every day.

Here’s a graphic picture as to what it does:

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As you can see, the Sucuri's CloudProxy Network sits between you and the Milsurps.Com server, forcing all digital traffic to go though the cloud, before it gets to our server for a response, then back to you.

High Availability Infrastructure is one of CloudProxy’s features and Sucuri's servers are spread all around the world.

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One of CloudProxy's special features is its caching. So, you not only get protection but also speed optimization due to the network's high performance caching. Most member's should see an overall general performance increase, as the result of the site using Sucuri's CloudProxy Network.

With an intermediate firewall now protecting our site which essentially inserts another processing environment between your computer and our site's server, you may experience the odd time when you can't connect. It's technically called Error 504 or Error 502. If that happens, you will most likely see web pages generated by Sucuri's CloudProxy Network that looks like either of the pics below. To resolve the error, simply wait a few minutes and try to load our site again.

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Note: If this error occurs immediately after you've typed a post and just submitted it, we understand how frustrating this can be in losing everything you've typed. So, try to use the web page backup function key on your web browser, to see if you can get back to the original page on which you were composing your text. If you can, make sure you highlight and select all your text with your mouse and save it, using the "copy" function (right mouse click). This puts a copy of your post text in your local computer's memory, which you can then use the "paste" function (right mouse click), to re-create a new thread quickly, should you get disconnected from our sever, or experience a time out 504 error. It's a really good practice to always being doing this from time to time, as you are creating and typing very long messages, just so you don't have to start all over again!!!!

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If after trying several times over a period of 10 to 15 minutes, you continue to receive a connection error message, then it's possible that our site is truly actually down for some reason.

If our site is offline (you are getting a timeout message or it does not open), try this.

Check if it is only you. Go HERE and type in "milsurps.com", to see if it is down for everyone or just you.

If the site is up for everyone else, it might be that just your specific IP address is being blocked for some reason by Sucuri's CloudProxy Network. It is very rare for it to happen by mistake, but if Sucuri found any suspicious activity coming from your IP address, they can block it for 30 minutes. You can try to wait a few more minutes to see if it will come back for you, or you can email the webmaster@milsurps.com and we will investigate with Sucuri for you.

If possible, please make sure to include your current IP address to allow us to troubleshoot the issue. If you aren't sure of what your public IP address is, then check Google - What is my IP address? (click here) and it will tell you. Cut-n-paste that IP address into your email when you report your problem.

It is also possible that you may be able to access our site fine, except when viewing specific web pages, you a shown a screen similar to this.

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That means that Sucuri's CloudProxy Network is protecting you and has detected what it believes is a virus attack contained on that web page. Don't panic!!! :lol:

99% of the time these are what are called false positive error messages and there's actually nothing wrong at all. It's usually just a case of Sucuri's CloudProxy Network intrusion software detecting some piece of information incorrectly, interpreting it as being malicious when it's not, but it's better to be safe then sorry. If you see receive this type of error page, then once again, simply send an email to the webmaster@milsurps.com, ideally with a screen shot of the error page you're seeing. It's important that you let us know which of our web pages (copy the Internet link), from which you're receiving the error message when you're trying to access it!

Finally, what if you think our site is running too slow for you? It may be that our site is running fine, but there's something wrong with the speed performance you're receiving locally.

To check that, have you tried running a speed test to see what performance your own ISP (Internet Service Provider) is giving you right to your own local computer? Here's a way you can test that to find out what speed you are being allowed by your ISP. Note: This link also appears under the Members Only tabbed drop down box located at the top of the forum.

General Internet Speed Test

You can use this test for ANY Internet provider service..

I use Bell's DSL service, which is all that's available where I live and it's rated at a VERY SLOW 6 Mb/second. Here's an example of my most current test.

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.. and here's the results of the same test when I connect from my high speed Internet connection at work rated at a VERY FAST 56 Mb/second !!

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Finally, if you're ever unsure about the safety and security of any web site you frequent, simply got to the link below and check to ensure that it's not blacklisted, as well as virus and malware free.

Free Website Malware and Security Scanner (click here)

We hope our new Sucuri CloudProxy Network firewall, helps all our members feel even more safe and comfortable when using our site ... :cheers:

Regards,
Doug

Doug, Worth every penny being a contributing member, keep up the appreciated work on all our behalf;)

Yes same sentiments here Doug like all things that are worth protecting this site deserves the best it can afford and I do not mind being part of the donations clientele..........so come on forumers how's about a donation to help out this site we all enjoy...........!

Thanks Doug, good to know just how much goes into making this a informative and safe site for users.

What does BOGGLE my mind is the lack of people who use it that DON'T contribute financially to help defray costs. It cost so very little and there are such great benefits.

I thought some of you might be interested to know that since the beginning of the month of March 2016, this new Sucuri CloudProxy Firewall, has stopped 182 DDos attacks on our site, including 35 last night alone.

For those of you who are technically minded.. ;)

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DDoS is short for Distributed Denial of Service.

DDoS is a type of DOS attack where multiple compromised systems, which are often infected with a Trojan, are used to target a single system causing a Denial of Service (DoS) attack. Victims of a DDoS attack consist of both the end targeted system and all systems maliciously used and controlled by the hacker in the distributed attack.

Understanding Distributed Denial of Service Attacks - YouTube

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Regards,
Doug

Doug. Just a heads up, my computer has recently been attacked, losing years of research and files.
The virus was one of the Cryptolocker style, a new variation for 2016, it entered via a US FedEx notification and remained dormant until activated by a Adware Virus, and was able to bypass my Security and track into my backup storage when it was accessed by me.

The security system I was using was McAffee......the emphasis on was, it just ignored the virus and kept telling me my system was clean, even when pointed to the problem.
The Adware virus was picked up on the Gunboards forum, since the change of ownership there seems to be a spate of strange performance issues...........now I can associate them to viral activety, my current Malware system blocking that site until I manually scan and clean the forums I used to access freely.
Hope this warning helps others to avoid the costly loss of information.......unless they want to pay big time to retrieve it.
So it's not just the computer at risk now, backup storage is also at risk.

Doug, yes this is the cleanest and safest of the forums.
I used Microsoft Security Essentials on a Windows 7 computer to clean the contaminated hardrive on my go to XP computer.
The advantage of MSE and Defender are that they are constantly updating the virus definitions and will tell you exactly where and what access points malware use to attack your system.
The IP address in the scan result was the give away for the other forum.

There is only one answer to this kind of problem that I am aware of, and it is a program known as "Deep Freeze", produced by Faronics out of Vancouver BC. Have a look at their website and corporate clients and you will see that what they have works. I have used it for years without any issues.

It is about $45 CAD for a license (per computer) and $7 a year for "maintenance" if you want it. I've never found it needed any.

The program locks up the computer on the kernel level. It is stated that you can make ANY change, install ANY program etc. and when you reboot it is all restored to the previous state. I have found this to be true in my experience. Hardly surprising since otherwise companies like MS and Toyota wouldn't be buying it!

Of course you are forced to store your data on remote drives; which is a good thing! No more losing years of work or photos etc. through hacks or hard drive crashes - unless your remote drives fail and duplicate backups is the only way to prevent that in any case.

You must "unfreeze" the system by entering a password and rebooting into an "unfrozen" state to make any permanent software changes. You can set the program to reboot unfrozen as many times in a row as you wish, or even permanently. Quite often two reboots are needed to install software for example.

You might wonder why a program like this isn't more widely known and used? I wonder that too!:rolleyes:

Installed on a CLEAN hard drive this program ensures that NOTHING can get in for longer than one session.

January 2017 Update

Last year was a particularly tough year for various firearms and collectors web sites, being hacked with viruses, malware and trojan horse infections. To name a few, it was reported to have happened to Gunboards, Jouster, and of late, the Ross Rifle Forum were subject of attacks. Sometimes these hacks were more then just infecting their members computers with malware, but also stealing personal information such as UserID's and Passwords.

As ZDnet reported .... Hacker steals 45 million accounts from hundreds of car, tech, sports forums The company that runs the forums admitted failings, but underplayed the hack.

More information....

Warning .. Ross Rifle web site infected with malware (click here)

Gunboards Hacked (click here)

We’ve now implemented additional security features to help protect our members from viruses, malware, trojan horse infections as well as theft of personal information they may have stored privately on our site.

What is DKIM?

Our new milsurps mail server is now fully functional and using DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail). DKIM is the ultra-modern method of verifying the source of an email message. DKIM will help alleviate issues with remote sites seeing mail from milsurps as "spam" as all email sent from the server will be cryptographically analyzed and then signed with a "private" encryption key. When remote mail servers receive the mail, they can do a DNS lookup on the new milsurps email sever and fetch a copy of the PUBLIC key which is then used in conjunction with the digitally signed message, to verify that it did indeed originate from an authorized server.

Short version; Mail is more secure!


What Is SSL?

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a server and a client—typically a web server (website) and a browser, or a mail server and a mail client (e.g., Outlook). SSL allows sensitive information such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, and login credentials to be transmitted securely. Normally, data sent between browsers and web servers is sent in plain text—leaving you vulnerable to eavesdropping. If an attacker is able to intercept all data being sent between a browser and a web server, they can see and use that information.

What is https?

Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is the secure version of HTTP, the protocol over which data is sent between your browser and the website that you are connected to. The 'S' at the end of HTTPS stands for 'Secure'. It means all communications between your browser and the website are encrypted.

By implementing all of the above protocols, the result for our members is that our site is much more secure then most other firearms and collectors web sites, that you may frequent and browse over the Internet .

Click the pics below to view the various authentication certificates and site checks for milsurps.com, as well as the browsers supported.

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Besides milsurps.com, at the time of writing this, here is a list of various firearms and collectors web sites that DO use encryption. Click the pics below to view the various authentication certificates returned by browsers when performing site checks.

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At the time of writing this, here is a list of various firearms and collectors web sites that DO NOT use any encryption. Click the pics below to view the various authentication certificates returned by browsers when performing site checks.

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When we first setup milsurps.com over 10 years ago, we didn't have a lot of disk storage space for pictures, so we used an external photo storage web site ImageEvent Picture Storage. Most of the pics shown in the various articles in the MKL, fall under this category.

The external ImageEvent Picture Storage site is not currently encrypted and depending upon your browser's handling of security notices, you may notice various types of warning messages as shown below. This would apply only if any pics shown to you here on our site, such as in the Knowledge Library, are actually sourced and displayed to you from that external storage. It's not something you need to worry about, as we have full control over the photo content stored on their site, so the likelihood of a security issue with any of those pics is very small. Therefore, it's perfectly fine to inform your browser to allow access as a permanent security exception.

Examples of browser security notices.

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Once we accumulate enough funds, our next project will be to migrate all of the external pics stored externally on ImageEvent Picture Storage, back onto our own milsurps.com server, where they will be handled with full encryption.

For the technical inclined, you may want to take some time to view the various videos that appear in the auto linking pop-ups, showing the various definitions of these acronyms.

We hope that these security changes and additions to our site, ensures that milsurps.com will continue to be one of the most highly reliable, safe, secure and enjoyable firearms collectors web sites on the Internet. :cheers:

Regards,
Doug

Possible breach.

I received an scam/phishing email with my user name and password to this site in the subject line. Threatening to "expose" me to my contact list. This is the only place I have used that username and PW combo so the info might be from here.

I've regularly do maintenance on my PC so I don't think I was the source you might want to check.

Not from here.

Let us know if there’s anything else we can do to help you.

Usually this happens as a result of Trojan Virus operating undetected in your personal PC.

It's happened twice on different PCs, one I've never used before, just after manual login to here.

I’m not disputing your results that you picked up a Trojan someplace in your travels, just your immediate conclusion that it’s a result of being a member on one of the documented safest gun sites for active virus protection on the Internet. Please reread the measures used at all levels to protect member security, right down to the Unix kernel operating and the Sucuri firewall which protects our members.

Please re-read the measures used here under Sucuri and how our inline virus protection system operates.

We have no way of validating your claims that you’ve never used the same name and password anywhere else on the Internet except here, so our 30,000+ members are left with a huge credibility question.

Anything is possible, but to avoid future unvalidated claims that we are running unsafe systems exploiting your username and password combination, we’d request you logout of our site and refrain from using in the future with any relationship to current account parameters.

We’ll give you a few days to gather up any research data you wish to save, then we’ll delete your account and all posts with embedded data.

In the meantime, we’ll examine system logs and other areas to see if we can help you in other ways.

Thank you for your cooperation

Regards
Doug

Member complaint follow up:

I placed a formal request with our systems engineering technical support team, to examine the feasibility of the poster’s claim.

Results as follows:

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I've found nothing to indicate that there was any breach, it's most likely a compromise on his local machine that was harvesting credentials as he typed them via keylogger. This scam attempt is very common and utilizes bulk data dumps to target users on topics that the attacker believes a subject would not want disclosed. It's usually related to porn sites and/or pirate downloads.

There's a pretty big disconnect between the claim that it happened on multiple PCs and the concept of it being a breach of Milsurps. Recommended course of action for him would be to change all his passwords, and to get a quality AV package. If he's using Windows, keeping Windows Defender updated and running is a good start. Although most people don't LIKE doing this; enabling User Account Control in Windows goes a long way to stop harvesting of credentials by preventing applications from running with Administrator privileges without secondary confirmation/permission from the user. Most people find this a nuisance and turn it off, which isn't advised with the current climate of the Internet.

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