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Clients have reported that our web site is displaying offensive language.

MikeD

We have had clients recently report that a certain phase on our website is rendering as profanity in their browser. We have confirmed that nothing in our database or the application code could be doing this. We are trying to understand the cause but we can not reproduce the issue. We have been provided screenshots from the clients and confirmed that the 2 most recent clients to report this issue were using Firefox. We can provide screenshots of the issue. It is always the same phrase being rendered as the same profanity. Has anyone seen a similar issue or know what might be causing this?

We have had clients recently report that a certain phase on our website is rendering as profanity in their browser. We have confirmed that nothing in our database or the application code could be doing this. We are trying to understand the cause but we can not reproduce the issue. We have been provided screenshots from the clients and confirmed that the 2 most recent clients to report this issue were using Firefox. We can provide screenshots of the issue. It is always the same phrase being rendered as the same profanity. Has anyone seen a similar issue or know what might be causing this?

All Replies (4)

That’s a strange one. If the database and page source both contain the correct phrase, I’d start looking at something happening in the browser, especially since the reports are coming from Firefox.

I’d have the affected users try Firefox in Troubleshoot Mode, or a private window, and see if it still happens. An extension, custom dictionary, translation feature, or other browser-side modification could potentially be changing what’s displayed.

I’d also compare the page source with what’s actually shown on screen. If you can share one of the screenshots and the exact phrase, that would help narrow down what’s going on.

Thanks. I have added images to show both the expected phrase and the bad rendering.

Modified by MikeD

Looks like a hacking incident or some extension went rogue. Could you ask them what extensions they have?

We are in the process of trying to set up a call with a user that has an impacted machine/browser to collect more information. This has actually been reported by about 5 different clients at some point over the last couple years so the only common thread appears to be the browser. It is rare and this site gets a very high volume of traffic so 5 incidents in the last couple years isn't much but we understand how surprising this might be if you end up being one of the users who experiences it. In the past, we have come to similar conclusions regarding possible hacking/browser extensions. More recently, we received 2 reports of this occurring with 2 different clients in the past few weeks which has caused us to revisit the issue to try and find an explanation.

Sual ver

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