So what happened exactly? somewhat of an explanation.
This was the combination of getting hacked, not responding to getting hacked, then incorrectly responding to getting hacked.
Initially, a security hole was found in vbulletin, and the "hackers" used this hole to insert a new admin account into the forums. This then gave them access to do much more. Some forums were simply hacked to show a message, others had malware inserted into them that helped continue the process...many sites were taken down by their hosts upon discovery of suspicious activity, but by then it was mostly to late.
One security firm estimates that approx 35,000 sites running vbulletin were hacked.
This happened while i was tied up with work of course. i started getting messages and emails saying the site was down, but since i was already pulling 14 hour days on shutdown, i had little time once back to town then to shower, eat, and sleep. to be honest i had given up on the site. i don't even have time to sit down and do ride reports after vacation and def did not want to spend my free time in front of a laptop trying to fix this mess. i had not even logged into other sites like adv rider in months.
Once i had a break between shutdowns i "tried" to fix things. i incorrectly assumed i was running vb5, so i figured a quick and painless upgrade to the latest vb5 might fix things up. um....nope. first off, i was running vb4 not 5, so when it started upgrading, it reconfigured damaged database to vb5 specs and you can not upgrade (well one person claims to be able to do it for $$$). problem is there is an incompatibility between vb5 and our host....actually between a lot of hosts it would seem, and even with upgrading from certain versions of vb4, and the more i looked for a solution, the more i learned vb5 was a complete piece of crap that everyone online was saying to avoid. now i know why.
so as of now, we start fresh with a complete new install of the latest vb4 and new dbase to go with it. i still have the old, now vb5 dbase in place, and as soon as vb5.1 is released which may fix the incompatibilities, i will try and install it again, separately from this new install, to see if i can recover some of the informative posts, even if i have to copy and paste them.
Until then, lets see how this goes. if the interest returns then i'll keep it going, if not, those of us left will find a corner of adv rider or what not to hide out in. i start a new work rotation in a few weeks, so i will have more time to check in on the forums, and finally get a few long over due ride reports uploaded.
This was the combination of getting hacked, not responding to getting hacked, then incorrectly responding to getting hacked.
Initially, a security hole was found in vbulletin, and the "hackers" used this hole to insert a new admin account into the forums. This then gave them access to do much more. Some forums were simply hacked to show a message, others had malware inserted into them that helped continue the process...many sites were taken down by their hosts upon discovery of suspicious activity, but by then it was mostly to late.
One security firm estimates that approx 35,000 sites running vbulletin were hacked.
This happened while i was tied up with work of course. i started getting messages and emails saying the site was down, but since i was already pulling 14 hour days on shutdown, i had little time once back to town then to shower, eat, and sleep. to be honest i had given up on the site. i don't even have time to sit down and do ride reports after vacation and def did not want to spend my free time in front of a laptop trying to fix this mess. i had not even logged into other sites like adv rider in months.
Once i had a break between shutdowns i "tried" to fix things. i incorrectly assumed i was running vb5, so i figured a quick and painless upgrade to the latest vb5 might fix things up. um....nope. first off, i was running vb4 not 5, so when it started upgrading, it reconfigured damaged database to vb5 specs and you can not upgrade (well one person claims to be able to do it for $$$). problem is there is an incompatibility between vb5 and our host....actually between a lot of hosts it would seem, and even with upgrading from certain versions of vb4, and the more i looked for a solution, the more i learned vb5 was a complete piece of crap that everyone online was saying to avoid. now i know why.
so as of now, we start fresh with a complete new install of the latest vb4 and new dbase to go with it. i still have the old, now vb5 dbase in place, and as soon as vb5.1 is released which may fix the incompatibilities, i will try and install it again, separately from this new install, to see if i can recover some of the informative posts, even if i have to copy and paste them.
Until then, lets see how this goes. if the interest returns then i'll keep it going, if not, those of us left will find a corner of adv rider or what not to hide out in. i start a new work rotation in a few weeks, so i will have more time to check in on the forums, and finally get a few long over due ride reports uploaded.
