Malicious Code

In late June when I was in the San Francisco Bay Area on a research trip, I received an email from a lovely fellow alerting me to the fact that the Lesbian Poetry Archive had been hacked. A little bit of malicious code would have been fine, annoying, but fine. It was not just a little bit of malicious code, however. The hackers managed to completely delete the home page and insert a photo and some profane language. (I paste the image of the hacked home page below.) Fortunately, I note wryly, nothing that I had not heard before. The night I discovered the hacking, I managed with only my iPad to delete the hostile image and language and insert another stand in home page. I did not have an opportunity that evening to go through the site closely and see what else had been done.Tonight, I finally sat down and did that. Four hours later after a painstaking review, I discovered that about eighty percent of the pages had little bits of malicious code inserted with links that trigger some sort of script. I edited most of the pages, deleting the malicious code and fixing the pages, restoring them to what they were. My eyes are crossed from this detail work.

This time with the site, however, reminded me of the many other things that I want to do with the Lesbian Poetry Archive. I hope over the next months that I will have an opportunity to return some attention to it, installing new exhibits, curating new ebooks, and other projects. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, check out what is there!