Hacked vBulletin Board: Crisis Avoided

[dc]

My apologies to everyone today for the very rude intrusion this morning by some uninvited guests. Apparently, there were some holes in the version of the forum software that we had been using, that allowed for destructive and malicious control over the forums.

I believe everything is back up and running with all of the unwanted codes having been removed. If you happen to find something in the forums and new forum software that does not function correctly, please e-mail directly at doug@apexspeed.com with the exact issue you are experiencing. There might be a few minor new graphics MIA, but I hope that's all that isn't functioning correctly.

Again, sorry for today's inconvenience.



doug

[scotts216]

Doug,
Nice job at getting rid of the "turkeys".......and so quickly. What a pain.....people have nothing better to do.....I thought we'd be offline for quite some time.......

[rickjohnson356]

Thanks very much for the speedy recovery.

I was starting to get the shakes & chills from not getting my fix in time, but all is well now.

[D.T. Benner]

I was logged in when the Turkeys hit the fan! That was evil! Glad you got it exorcised so fast! A day without ApexSpeed is like a day without sunshine!

[dc]

It kinda freaked me out. In all of the years I have been doing web discussion forums, I have never had that happen to me. Crazy.

I guess some people are bored enough to need to be destructive for fun.

[Jim Garry]

I guess some people are bored enough to need to be destructive for fun.

Sorry for the amateur psychology, but it's not fun they're after. It's control.

Jim

[El Guapo]

Doug,

You got rid of them and got the site back up and running incredibly fast. I thought we had crushed the Ottoman Empire long ago.

EG

[dc]

We're still seeing a few hiccups here and there that I will look into this afternoon when I have a chance. The software is new here, too, so there might be things in IT that don't quite function like they should, as well.


If you notice, one of the issues we had to take care of in a hurry was the ad banners. They had to be removed because something in the code was causing problems. Rest assured, they will be back up and running as soon as I have a spare moment. Any advertisers will get an extra month out of their runs as soon as I am able to get them all back online. My appologies for the downtime.



What next...

[Ted Idlof]

what did they do and what was the impact on the typical user?

[Keith Carter]

No apparent serious damage, just the hijacking of forum links to their own "We are elite hackers, look at we can do" web page. With the forum software only being a half rev out of date, there was a vulnerability left open which let them in. A perfect example of why you should keep your systems up to date with the latest patches/revs. End users need not worry.