Blogger Blogs Displaying Mysterious "SECURITY WARNING" Popup Boxes

This week, we're seeing a few concerned blog owners, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, asking about a mysterious SECURITY WARNING popup box, on their blogs.

Like the earlier concern about the transparent boxes covering the blog, this appears to be another broken FaceBook Connect gadget.

The mysterious SECURITY WARNING isn't too hard to resolve.

Generally, the problem will start with a new FaceBook accessory, recently added.

<div id="fb-root"></div>
<script>(function(d, s, id) {
  var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
  if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
  js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
  js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/id_ID/all.js#xfbml=1";
  fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));</script>

<div class="fb-like-box" data-href="http://www.facebook.com/xxxxxxx" data-width="265" data-show-faces="true" data-stream="true" data-header="true"></div>

If you can identify the problem gadget in your blog, you can edit the gadget, and Remove it. Some owners have installed the code in question, in a specific post.

As an alternate solution, you may add CSS which will hide the warning. Using the "Add CSS" wizard in the Template Designer Advanced menu, add the following code:

#fb_xdm_frame_http, #fb_xdm_frame_https
{
 display:none !important;
}

As always, after you add or remove the code in question, and save the changes, you will need to clear browser cache and restart the browser, to accurately test success in resolving the problem.

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Blog Owners Report Mysterious Blogs Added To Their Dashboard Blog List

We are seeing a small but steadily increasing stream of problem reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, from Blogger blog owners, wondering where these mysterious blogs, being added to their dashboard "My blogs" list, are coming from.

Is anyone else experiencing random blogs being added to their dashboard? I login, and I notice that many blogs have been made - and they're all with names that are just a jumble of letters and numbers, but no posts. All of them lead to the same blog though.

Here's a random list of the names of 7 such blogs, which were recently created in the "blogspot.com" name space. If you wish to examine these blogs, and these have not yet been deleted by the Blogger anti spam processes, I strongly advise that you use a proxy server, or similar isolation technique. Never examine any hacking / spam attack component, unprotected.

yyxfkfgpiy
x24xd2wtu1
4o4fq0rqp9
26djmc3xyh
m9s5tdor2l
h62wo5uthr
bsojvu43gk

Some blog owners are seeing dozens of these mysterious blogs. Adding to the confusion, a couple owners have even thought that their legitimate blogs have been replaced. Fortunately, what is happening is that the legitimate blogs are still there - just not visible in the noise.

When queried for details, many owners report having received, and accepted, an offer involving FaceBook, and the suggestion to "Change your colors". Apparently, if logged in to both Blogger / Google, and FaceBook, this mysterious "FaceBook app" will simply setup quantities of BlogSpot hosted spam blogs, frighteningly reminiscent of blogs created as part of the long ago observed Russian Business Network spam blog farms.

Each blog created has the same initial content - a display, with the offer to "Change your FaceBook colors". The link to accept the offer then leads to a non Google website, which installs the malware, which creates the mysterious spam blogs, in mass quantity. For your examination, here is one example spam blog - which may or may not currently be online, using a proxy server link.

http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://yyxfkfgpiy.blogspot.com/

We don't yet know what, if anything, is being installed on the computer used in the blogs creation - nor how malicious the virus is, when installed on one's own computer. Our advice is simple - avoid becoming a victim. If you are receiving invitations for this service, it's possible that your FaceBook friends, supposedly sending the invitations, are the current victims. If you ignore the offer, you should be safe.

It's possible, too, that this attack is enabled by the massive attacks of seemingly purposeless spam comments, being published on various blogs.

If you are concerned about this situation, you might want to check all of your blogs for unfamiliar code - then review your current protection, and even consider using Google 2-step verification.

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Attention Canadian Blog Owners: The URL Of Your Blog Is "BlogSpot.com" - NOT "BlogSpot.ca"

We have a number of blog owners, apparently located in Canada, who have been sharing their "blogspot.com" published Blogger blogs, using the "blogspot.ca" alias. This week, two major services - FaceBook and McAfee Anti-Malware, have decided that links mentioning "blogspot.ca" are not trustworthy.

Use of the Country Code aliases - of which "blogspot.ca" is simply one of many - has provided potential for confusion, for some time. What some blog owners may not realise is that only the online viewers of the blog (and the owners, viewing their own blogs) see the "blogspot.ca" alias - and only when they are located in Canada. At the same time, people in Malaysia see their blog (and other blogs, published to "blogspot.com") as "blogspot.my", people in Mexico see their blog as "blogspot.mx", etc.

Thanks to the use of the canonical URL, specified in the blog header, the search engines index "blogspot.com" published Blogger blogs, consistently, as "blogspot.com".

It's possible that FaceBook and McAfee have tightened down on their link validation criteria. Noting that the "blogspot.ca" alias is not indexed by the search engines, they may simply be objecting to people posting links that have no reputation. Multiple people posting links without reputation could be seen as an organised link spamming campaign - and FaceBook has reacted.

Why FaceBook (social networking), and McAfee (anti-malware), seem to have changed their criteria simultaneously, remains to be seen.

For immediate concern, we see many Canadian blog owners with massive amounts of previously posted FaceBook links, pointing to "blogspot.ca". Unfortunately, this may be an issue which the blog owners need to discuss with FaceBook.

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