Royaline theme contains spam device

  • Several WordPress versions ago, I downloaded a three-column theme called “Royaline” from www.remarpro.com and used it on my site, LitKicks.com. After almost a year with this theme, LitKicks was suddenly blocked from Google due to a prescription drug spam that turned out (I finally discovered after much work) was embedded in the theme. It can be found in defaultFilters.php in wp-includes, and it is triggered a footer do_action. The spam links only show up in requests that contain identifiers for search engine bots, so you won’t see the links when you view source. Anybody who is using the Royaline theme should be aware that you may be blocked from Google. This theme should not be used, but if you already use it you can disable the spam by removing the footer do_action (and, to be safe, remove the function from defaultFilters.php as well).

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  • Scary — thanks for discovering and documenting this.

    Moderator Samuel Wood (Otto)

    (@otto42)

    www.remarpro.com Admin

    This is inaccurate. I downloaded that theme and can find nothing wrong with it in this respect. If you were hacked, it was through some other method.

    And the default-filters.php file, along with everything else in wp-includes, is part of WordPress itself. Not part of any theme.

    However, that Royaline theme DOES contain hidden spammy links, just not the ones you’re talking about. The ones I see are to a porn site and the author’s own site.

    So I would avoid using the theme, but I would not blame your recent troubles on that theme.

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