[Site being down and consequences?]

Hello!

I haven't posted before, but I wondered what we can do if we cannot log onto the site. Both myself and another author (who actually has a story archived here that she was trying to update) attempted to log onto the site. I was unable to from about 11 pm EDT last night til about 1 pm today. I tried with both IE and Google. When I turned off my firewall, and tried, I got an error message saying the link was broken. Then, this afternoon, all was fine. I didn't know if I had a problem because of my software and its updates, or whether the site itself had crashed, as it used to do when Ayla ran it.

Is there a mechanism in place to let us know about problems, and what, if anything, we can do to help resolve them? Regarding the tech stuff on the site, I mean. Thanks for your time, and I'm sorry if this is not the appropriate place to post this.

[Rogue virus alert]

Thanks so much...I downloaded the A-squared one, and found it useful. Ran without my regular firewalls going, and then loaded them back on. Much faster.

First of all, this thing is a variant of Antivirus 2008/2009.

It's got an interesting way of spreading itself, via IM, primarily MSN Messenger (any flavor).

My daughter got my machine infested entirely by accident while chatting in MSN IM. Didn't click any links, accept any file transfers, nothing like that. She was simply chatting, and then all of sudden, there it was. So, been trying to clean this beastie OUT for the last few days.

Here's the thing..

I deleted all associated files, killed all associated processes, and deleted all associated registry entries. NORMALLY, that will then allow a user to then run their anti malware software. Well, this thing is also a TSR, so while I did all that, it still didn't kill it enough to disable it. Which means that none of my malware removal stuff would work. As it turns it all OFF. This also tends to turn off most antivirus programs. Two of the few exceptions that I know of are Kaspersky and Avira. With Avira (I use it, so have experienced what'll happen), it turns off the Antivirus guard section. Simple enough fix, you simple turn the service back on, and the program will then continue to work as it should.

So, in an effort to de-infest my machine, found a malware utility that is free, and that this thing not only doesn't turn off, the program then finds it in the memory, deletes all instances, and then your machine is once again free from the nasty.

A-Squared Free

This program offers a 2-in-1 package, or simply the malware removal tool.

In addition, the MAIN trojan TSR that this thing infests you with is Trojan-Downloader.Win32.Renos.AQ and any variant of the same.

Removal tool for the trojan only.

Might be a good idea for people to run the thing, just in case.