I just noticed the appearance of about 10 jpg pics in my media library that I did not upload. They are not attached to any post, are located in the uploads folder (and not the month-specific folder like other media files) and are not linked to any user. There appears to be no other ill effects from their presence but the result of deleting permanently is that they appear to return in duplicate. Attempts to remove via FTP also failed.
A quick internet search for the file names reveals several other websites hosting these files and the one thing they have in common is the Newspaper theme.
A search of my website files revealed these could be placeholder images used by the TagDiv Multi-Purpose plugin (hence TDM prefix in the filename).
Please confirm this is just a sloppy implementation of the TagDiv Multi-Purpose plugin and users need not be concerned and waste a lot of time researching what otherwise appears to be a parasitic exploit.
Hello,
This is not a sloppy implementation. These images are placeholders for the multi-purpose elements. Why would this be sloppy? You can see the images in your media library. It is not a parasitic exploit. They are just a few images that help the tagdiv composer show certain elements. Why sloppy? why parasitic? They are just a few sample images that come with the plugin.
Thank you!
You could
a. Rename these files e.g. as “newspaper_theme_example_placeholder_*.jpg” Some of us design sites for customers who are mad with security. I didn’t know that these files were added via your plugin and didn’t know how to explain it. My customers assumed that I was using my admin account to login and post on their behalf.
b. Remove the content and use an “X” on a neutral grey background so that the placeholder will LOOK like a placeholder that everybody is familiar with.
Is there a way to remove the images and stop theme for being reinstalled. As every time I try to delete them they keep returning/
Hi,
@stvnalln I believe the placeholder images will reappear if removed, as long as the multi-purpose plugin is active. If you are not using the multi-purpose plugin you can remove them.
I don’t know why you would like to remove those images however. They are not causing any issues by simply being in the media library, they are simple standard images.
Thanks
