Our Blog was hacked on Tuesday, Jan 29, 2008 at approximately 19:29:06. The criminal who did this erased the entire database (including all online backups) of stories, posts, and comments and deleted all the user accounts, including all administrator access. Luckily, our provider uses monitoring software on its servers and we were able to capture and restore some key information about this perpetrator. (PS – He’s not a conservative.)
We were also able to restore our Blog database as of January 24, 2008 from our off-site server backups. Over the next few days we will re-add some of the more important stories that were posted here.
It would be great to have a procedure of DAILY backups, regadless of the number of daily posts.
This will ensure that the amount of information impacted (your posts, the comments of your readers) are kept to a minimum
What this person did deserves punishment, especially since they attempted to destroy the intellectual property and digital content assets of your authors and members (many year’s worth) and violated the rights of the site and Blog owners. You can send this information to several agencies and have them investigate and prosecute. This is serious business and especially since 9/11 the gov’t doesn’t tolerate this sort of BS.
Reporting Computer, Internet-Related, or Intellectual Property Crime
http://www.cybercrime.gov/reporting.htm
The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)
http://www.ic3.gov/
Local FBI Offices
http://www.fbi.gov/contact/fo/fo.htm
Electronic Crimes Task Forces
http://www.treas.gov/usss/
Full Contact List for the Attorneys General
http://www.naag.org/ag/full_ag_table.php
Chris, thanks for the update. I’m very sorry you had to go through that. Why anyone would do that is utterly beyond me.
I didn’t know if there was some computer glitch, or if maybe you just got fed up with all of us. I’m glad to know that the latter was not the case. Best wishes, and I hope that the hacker gets what he or she deserves.
Pray for their soul, continue to love them, and report them to the authorities.
As an IT professional, I know how frustrating your situation can be. I’m glad you had an off-site backup (NOTE: Here’s a real world example of why off-site backups are important). It sounds like your provider is doing what it is supposed to in the backup world.
While I’m all for love, mercy, and compassion I’m also one who believes that folks need to take responsibility for their actions. They’ve done something intentionally wrong, and that means there should be consequences.
I’m very glad to see you all back up and running.
I am so sorry to read this. Years of work and many hours daily go into operating a blog such as this. The quality is always good. I lean so much here. May God restore to you that which has been lost.
The right-believing Anglicans have had the same thing happen to them. CaNNet was decimated. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was done by the same hacker.