XF 2.0 Forum being redirected to scam/survey site?

[PJK]

A few users are reporting:

Whenever I go to the home page of Speedsolving.com on my safari browser, I’m immediately being redirected to scam surveys and scam gift card claims. This has been happening since exactly 7 AM this morning. I don’t know if I’m the only one, but it might be worth to check it out and see what’s going on.

The site that I’m being redirected to is loompaspalace.com or something like that.

This is the thread:

Forums are almost unusable on Mobile today.

Whenever I go to the home page of Speedsolving.com on my safari browser, I’m immediately being redirected to scam surveys and scam gift card claims. This has been happening since exactly 7 AM this morning. I don’t know if I’m the only one, but it might be worth to check it out and see what’s...

speedsolving.com

Any ideas on how to troubleshoot this issue? I'm unsure where to start and can't replicate it. Thanks.

 

[Suzanne O]

Admincp > options > user discipline > redirect site > change url > save

 

[RobParker]

Admincp > options > user discipline > redirect site > change url > save

This is nothing to do with this...

@PJK, we've had a very similar issue since yesterday.

I'm fairly certain it's a dodgy google ad that's slipped through their QA. I reported it to google but being a weekend I've not heard back from them yet.

Googling for the issue and various sites are reporting the same issue today so it looks reasonably widespread.

 

[RobParker]

I should add we've had over 50 reports of this from our users (and I experienced it myself) on Safari/iOS.

 

[RobParker]

Here's our thread on it but I don't think it helps anyone much - http://www.spurscommunity.co.uk/index.php?threads/spam-pop-ups-redirects.136420/post-6410762

Some people report that using Chrome doesn't seem to have the issue or that clearing Safari data might temporarily help but I think we're at Google's mercy here :-(

 

[HWS]

This problem is well known and caused by problematic ads. They target mobile users only.
All you can do is find out which ad causes the problem and block (and report) the ad.

Or -of course- disable all your ads.

 

[PJK]

Admincp > options > user discipline > redirect site > change url > save

Nothing is set there. The issue is like the Adsense issue mentioned above. Thanks for your time.

 

[PJK]

Happened again yesterday, likely again from Adsense. A real shame as I may permanently disable them.

 

[RobParker]

Yep, same here. Started again yesterday with a different URL.

 

[Slavik]

It has everything to do with it.

It has to do with 3rd party loaded ads, nothing to do with the XenForo options.

 

[HWS]

Most modern browsers block it automatically ("top level redirects"). So asking the users to update their apps helps.

 

[PJK]

It's related to Google Adsense serving shady ads... it's happen three times now.

 

[RobParker]

Most modern browsers block it automatically ("top level redirects"). So asking the users to update their apps helps.

It's predominantly Safari/iOS so that advice doesn't help. Also happening on Chrome/Android but Chrome can block the redirect.

 

[HWS]

It's predominantly Safari/iOS so that advice doesn't help.

Using iOS 13 beta and Safari also does not allow such redirects by default.

 

[RobParker]

Using iOS 13 beta and Safari also does not allow such redirects by default.

Thanks that's good to know but not really a solution for now.

 

[HWS]

Thanks that's good to know but not really a solution for now.

Unfortunately there is no solution here other than the ad agency checking the code delivered by them.

This is a very annoying problem leading to even more users with ad blockers and every respectable ad agency should have a solution in place. It should be easy for them to use iframe tags only with the proper sandbox value.