Fourm is back after being hacked by Syrian "Hactivists"

[jkis Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jkis]

Re: Fourm is back after being hacked by Syrian "Hactivists"

The site would not load from Sunday night until early last night (Monday night) but I did not see a hackers site or the Indonesians

hi tilly i received an email, that you had done a post, "in hello from booral" testing, i couldnt get in to see the site, when i did there was nothing in there, did like the cover sound track
cheers stuart

[Tony From West Oz Vice Chairperson of WARFA Find all posts View Profile Close Tony From West Oz]

Re: Fourm is back after being hacked by Syrian "Hactivists"

I also had an issue on Sunday nite / Monday morning.
Tim also had this issue so Robert acted to repair the issue.
I have no details what the issue was, but the forum seems to be OK now.

Regards,
Tony

[Robert Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Robert]

Re: Fourm is back after being hacked by Syrian "Hactivists"

Apologies for the late reply on this. The site itself (following a recent "beef up" of the back-end security) was actually OK, but it was unavailable to all following some additional security measures placed upstream by the host. The host has had a nightmare over the last month or so with many of the sites getting hacked and some also going for their servers. Some of these have got in via ad networks (there are ads on this site that are pulled in via google ads). Many times hackers target ad banners as an easy way to get pulled into otherwise secure sites.

That has led the host to add additional filters that block traffic coming into suspected sites. Apparently there were some ads being served in here that may have originated from China and that caused the site to be blocked by the host upstream from the server. After some time talking with me, the host has adjusted these filters.

The price of peace is eternal vigilance. Sadly sometimes the vigilance also gets in the way of free access - a virtual police state if you will. For the people maintaining the free flow of information, trying to keep constantly in front of those who constantly try to find new ways in can be tiresome and I do sympathise with my host's extra security, even though it caused downtime in here (I'd rather downtime than nasty hacks, possibly doing other damage).

Now, as for the Indonesians... don't know, sorry, I never heard anything on this, so it's news to me.

Oh, and if you are trying to access this site now from an IP that appears to come from China or Russia, you will be blocked upstream before you even hit the server. Sorry, I know this seems racist, but the host has added this measure as that's where most attacks originate and the legitimate traffic from these locations is presently negligible.

[Robert Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Robert]

Re: Fourm is back after being hacked by Syrian "Hactivists"

Phew! Well after yet another day off the air this is getting really old, really fast.

Firstly apologies to those of you who spend time in here, I hope you were able to find suitably useful other pursuits. A nod to those who complain about my host, but the issues are bigger than you think.

Anyway, the site is now on a new server and a new IP and hopefully with all the same bits setup. As I mentioned above, there has been a major security shake-up and in my hosts haste to plug some other holes, he implemented some changes that I didn't know about until too late. I've now sorted out my side of the equation and the site is back.

Apparently there was a fairly serious exploit in the kernel of the system running a bunch of shared sites and the whole machine ended up being rebuilt from scratch to plug it (or so I'm told). So enough with the explanations, excuses and apologies. I can only hope that after this particularly rough patch through storms, reefs, sharks and pirates, this site can offer some smoother surfing again.

[tillyfromparadise Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close tillyfromparadise]

Re: Fourm is back after being hacked by Syrian "Hactivists"

Good to see the forum back yet again.

[jkis Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jkis]

Re: Fourm is back after being hacked by Syrian "Hactivists"

i agree, you guy's seem to get ontop of it quick, have seen some sites go down for a couple of weeks,
cheers stuart

[RODEONICK Too Busy To Bio. Find all posts View Profile Close RODEONICK]

Re: Fourm is back after being hacked by Syrian "Hactivists"

Thanks Robert your a champion.