So What Happened These Past 2 Weeks
Posted: February 5th, 2011, 1:26 am
Here is a quick recap of what happened.
1) There was a vulnerability found in the site. It happens unfortunately when you are a large site. Around the same time sourceforge was also hit and there is a chance they attacks where related.
2) We first took our time trying to figure out how they managed to get it and plugged the whole.
3) We have a special hosting company that deals in packet attacks and other things and we worked with them to restore everything as we have multiple backup hard drives.
4) The company made a massive mistake and instead of doing it on site had a tech log into the server from an outside local which gave the hacker access again because he easily installed a backdoor and the company took down our ip blocks via the firewall.
5) Hacker deleted the files on hard drive 1 and backup 1. Trust me when i say we weren't happy about the stupid mistake they made and needless to say we aren't even done with the !@#$%^&* storm they will be getting.
6) We still have another backup hard drive as we like to be over cautious and we had that one installed.
7) Because bad things happen in 3s. The backup actually went down right then and there on us.
8) We sent it out right away to a company that was suppose to pick it up 2 weeks ago on Friday but the hosting company gave them the wrong hard drive so we had to wait until that following Monday.
9) Restoration site gave us a list of the backups we had and said sure we can fix it and give you the files you needed from the crashed HD.
10) Restoration company says it takes 2-5 days ended up taking about 8-9 days to do a restoration.
11) Restoration company either sucks at what they do or lied because they couldn't recover any of the files asked for.
12) We then reverted to an older backup we had that kept all the user names but to be safe for the forums we had to revert a few months back ugh.
13) We are still working on restoring posts as we have a demi-backup but its not in any sort of form that can be used to actually do a full database restore.
In summary
We had a major hack attack on the site and due to horrible circumstances some posts where lost, however all user accounts are still there. We are also working on restoring a ton of the posts lost.
On the glass half full note:
1) In our searching for possible ways for the site to be attacked we found a major bug fo ra piece of software that thousands of people use and notified them. This will help keep those people safe.
2) We purchased another server for the site which will help keep tu running even faster and we fixed an annoying memory error finally so that whole time out while posting bug seems to be gone.
3) We have installed some neat new software apps to help the sites speed.
4) We are working on hiring some new interns to help clean things up and add more content.
5) The game pages should all be redone shortly with updated layouts and features to make your gaming experience easily.
TU IS BACK AND STRONGER THAN EVER :)
1) There was a vulnerability found in the site. It happens unfortunately when you are a large site. Around the same time sourceforge was also hit and there is a chance they attacks where related.
2) We first took our time trying to figure out how they managed to get it and plugged the whole.
3) We have a special hosting company that deals in packet attacks and other things and we worked with them to restore everything as we have multiple backup hard drives.
4) The company made a massive mistake and instead of doing it on site had a tech log into the server from an outside local which gave the hacker access again because he easily installed a backdoor and the company took down our ip blocks via the firewall.
5) Hacker deleted the files on hard drive 1 and backup 1. Trust me when i say we weren't happy about the stupid mistake they made and needless to say we aren't even done with the !@#$%^&* storm they will be getting.
6) We still have another backup hard drive as we like to be over cautious and we had that one installed.
7) Because bad things happen in 3s. The backup actually went down right then and there on us.
8) We sent it out right away to a company that was suppose to pick it up 2 weeks ago on Friday but the hosting company gave them the wrong hard drive so we had to wait until that following Monday.
9) Restoration site gave us a list of the backups we had and said sure we can fix it and give you the files you needed from the crashed HD.
10) Restoration company says it takes 2-5 days ended up taking about 8-9 days to do a restoration.
11) Restoration company either sucks at what they do or lied because they couldn't recover any of the files asked for.
12) We then reverted to an older backup we had that kept all the user names but to be safe for the forums we had to revert a few months back ugh.
13) We are still working on restoring posts as we have a demi-backup but its not in any sort of form that can be used to actually do a full database restore.
In summary
We had a major hack attack on the site and due to horrible circumstances some posts where lost, however all user accounts are still there. We are also working on restoring a ton of the posts lost.
On the glass half full note:
1) In our searching for possible ways for the site to be attacked we found a major bug fo ra piece of software that thousands of people use and notified them. This will help keep those people safe.
2) We purchased another server for the site which will help keep tu running even faster and we fixed an annoying memory error finally so that whole time out while posting bug seems to be gone.
3) We have installed some neat new software apps to help the sites speed.
4) We are working on hiring some new interns to help clean things up and add more content.
5) The game pages should all be redone shortly with updated layouts and features to make your gaming experience easily.
TU IS BACK AND STRONGER THAN EVER :)
