We got malware – currently stomping it out!
Just a quick (well, semi-quick) heads-up from behind the scenes, because I know a bunch of you will have noticed the site was properly knackered last night.
Yeah… we got smacked with malware. Woke up to the fun surprise of redirects, dodgy pop-ups, and the whole thing looking like it had been hijacked by some script-kiddie’s greatest hits album. Not the relaxing morning coffee vibe any of us were after. Gutted doesn’t even cover it – felt like someone had kicked the front door in on our little community space.
Right now we’re very much in recovery mode. The server’s been isolated, we’ve been through it with a fine-tooth comb (and several very sweary antivirus scans), pulled clean backups, and started the long process of putting Humpty Dumpty back together again. It’s slow, fiddly work – checking every file, database entry, plugin, theme tweak – but we’re not rushing it. Better to take the extra hours and be sure it’s properly clean than slap a plaster on and invite round two.
The silver lining? This has finally forced our hand on something we’ve been meaning to do for yonks: we’re moving the site over to Cloudflare. Not just the basic DNS bit – we’re going full proper protection mode. Their Web Application Firewall (WAF), bot fight mode, DDoS mitigation, aggressive caching, the lot. A lot of the infection came through an outdated plugin that got exploited before we could patch it (yes, we should’ve been quicker – mea culpa). Cloudflare sits in front of everything now, filtering out the rubbish before it even reaches our origin server. We’re mid-migration as I type this – DNS is propagating, rules are being set up, and the famous orange cloud is slowly lighting up. It won’t be instant (DNS can be a right pain), but once it’s done, incidents like last night should be a hell of a lot harder to pull off.
Before I ramble on too much, I need to give a huge shout-out to the absolute stars in the Sneakerhead and kink communities who jumped in to help yesterday and overnight. Some of you hopped into Discord at stupid o’clock, shared IOCs and log snippets, suggested blocks and workarounds, tested mirror links so others could still read while we scrambled, and a couple even chucked over spare hosting credits or bandwidth when things were properly touch-and-go. That kind of solidarity when everything’s gone tits-up? It means everything. You didn’t just help resurrect a website – you reminded me why we built this daft little place in the first place. Proper heroes, every single one of you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Good news on the stories front: all your favourites are on their way back. We’ve got verified clean backups, and we’re carefully re-uploading everything now. A few of the older posts with images or attachments might take a smidge longer (being extra paranoid about anything embedded), but the bulk should be live again very shortly – think the next day or so, all being well. If you pop back once things are up and spot something missing, broken, or still acting sus, just ping us in the comments, on Discord, or wherever you usually lurk. We’ll get it sorted pronto.
And look – while we’ve got your attention… if there’s a story idea that’s been rattling around in your head, now is genuinely a brilliant time to chuck it our way. Doesn’t matter if it’s a full detailed prompt, a one-line “what if…”, a particular kink dynamic, sneaker scenario, pairing, setting – whatever’s got you buzzing. Drop it in the ideas thread, slide into DMs, comment below, whatever feels easiest. The more inspiration floating about, the faster we can get cracking on fresh content once the dust settles and the new protections are humming along nicely.
Honestly, thank you for bearing with us through this hiccup. Running a niche site like this is a labour of love, and it only keeps going because people like you keep showing up, reading, commenting, sharing, and – when needed – helping pick up the pieces. That community spirit is what makes it special.
Right, back to the grind – got some Cloudflare page rules to finesse and a final backup diff to run. Fingers crossed we’ll be fully back and better protected very soon, with new stories not far behind.
Catch you all on the flip side.
