Admin login page corrupt

Hello,

I haven't had much activity on my site lately, and when I attempted to go in to upload some new products, I noticed my Admin login page is corrupt or something. A page-ful of nasty cryptic characters loads. Has anyone encountered this before?

I believe I am using the most recent version of Zen Cart but can't confirm b/c I can't access my login page: https://www.crafting2x2.com/zencart/admin/login.php

Up until a few months ago (the last time I accessed it), everything had been working great w/ no problems. The main storefront seems to be find and functioning as well: http://www.crafting2x2.com/zencart/

I'm using Dreamhost to host the site.

Thanks,
Phyllis

Could be a character-set issue?

Problem is I cant see the source to check!

Doesn't look like it has been hacked but maybe. I doubt a server issue.

Have you got a backup of your admin page?

Also have you applied the latest security patch?

I can see you are using the standard file path which not encouraged!

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=69510

this looks like a hack to me. I've seen it before. Hopefully you have a backup of your database. Check the FTP files for timestamps and see if something was updated on or around june28-july 7, which was when the nasty exploit started showing up.

If you need help, PM me and we can take a look at the files and see what happened.

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=130161

Thanks to everyone for all the helpful replies. This was a scary incident and I've learned my lesson well! I will never be lax about backing up again, that's for sure!

I followed your instructions (rename admin, security patch) and in the process of uploading the security patch files, I located the file that was causing the cryptic code on the admin login page. It was a file called core13212.php (created 6/28/09) that had been maliciously placed in admin > includes > functions > extra functions. Sure enough when I viewed the file it contained a bunch of lines of jibberish. I deleted the file and my admin page opened!!!! :clap:

So thankful for all of your help. If this happens to anyone else, I hope my post can be of some help as well.

One last question, as I am trying to follow Dr. Byte's suggestion to change the MySQL db username & password - how do I do this? I did see the post that tells you where to change the configure.php files, but I wasn't sure how to go about actually changing the db username & password.

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=43639

You'll have to use your hosting company's control panel to change the database username and password. Ask them for help with that if you need it.
Once you've changed those details, update your site's 2 configure.php files to contain the updated information.