ANNC: READ! IMPORTANT!

The main board has been hacked. What SLuG says below is correct, so please comply!

We are working with our webhost to upgrade the board software and install some security patches. Please bear with us and we'll keep you posted as we can!

Also, we will probably not be authorizing new accounts here on the back up board, just as a precaution.

Thank you Mods for all the very hard work you all do 'behind the scenes' for all of us..........I changed my password here, won't go to the other place till it' safe

Happy Labor Day!! Have fun storming the castle !!!

Serious props to the mods/owners of HT who are sacrificing their holiday to keep HT functioning properly.

I sent an email to everyone registered here, but I'm posting it here just in case:

A hacker has attacked the main HT board. We are working with our webhost to upgrade the board security, and hope to be back up later tonight or tomorrow morning.

Once we get access to the main board, PLEASE promptly go into your My Controls and CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD. This is very important, as the hacker was able to access some member passwords today.

As always, thank you for your patience and understanding!

*FIST!*

Thanks Magpie and the other mods for your hard work. This kind of personal consideration and dedication is what allows HT to remain such a wonderful community season after season.

Y'all are the best!

Thanks for your hard work Mods...and your, um, patience?

While y'all are dealing with the aftermath of our lovely <hack> hacker...I doubt you still have enough patience, so I'll send you my extra patience....ready? Catch!
*sends 10lbs of patience to the Most Awesomest Meds Evah!

Question:
How will we know when it's safe to enter our passwords?
I just tried, and it looked real to me, so I, um *shudders* entered my info.
(11:15pm HT)

I did not get 'logged in' (because now you say the Log In page is FAKE and I'm already logged in)...so now the HACK-er has my password if she didn't have it already. AAARRRGGGHHH!

(Well, it COULD be a SHE, damn it! What is this the 1950's? Women can do anything now! haha!!)

I believe what's going on now is,
the board is being restored to the most recent backup file in terms of messages posted.
I don't think the user names have been restored yet, that's why when you try to log in it's not working.

That's just a guess on my part, the mods can clear things up when they get a chance.

Thanks again to all working to get HT back on line.

I have a question... that I am not sure if it is related to all of this. For the past 4 or 5 days it always wants me to log in, even though "Remember this" is checked. Prior to this it just kept me logged in as normal, as I prefer. But the past 4 or 5 days it always wants me to log in anytime I come to the site.

I am an IT professional, have cleared all browser caches etc. and it still does it, everytime I come to the site.

Is this related to the fake login page?

That's fairly close to what I understand, IceMan. As far as I can tell, the upgrade isn't complete yet. Our superawesome web hosting firm is working away at installing the updated tech stuff (and on a holiday, no less!). We've been in contact with them all day as we've been working through what we needed to get done.

What I can tell you is that as a side effect of this upgrade, not only will HT have increased security, but HT members will also have some cool new toys to play with.

This upgrade is something we were planning on doing after the season was over in order to avoid just this sort of downtime, but we obviously need the enhanced security now, so here we are.

ETA:

Interesting question. I'll make a note to address that when we're up and running smoothly again.

Just checked up on the main board before I go to sleep.

Everything seems rolled back to just before the hack with the most recent post time-stamped at 2:54 p.m Eastern.

The Hamster Time skin's still frakked from the hack. Most noticeably, Fisty's not back, and I had to switch to lo-fi version (link at the bottom of the page) to read any posts because I kept getting skin-related error messages otherwise.

Actually, the IPB default skins work, too, but they don't have the handy-dandy link header.

At least those creepy eyes are gone. Hopefully karma electra with hit the hacker with tons of homework and extra long detentions so he/she won't bother us again.

So it looks like we're back up. Again, be sure to change your password as an extra precaution. If you have trouble or are afraid to even attempt it, one of us admins will be back this afternoon/evening to help you out. You can PM one of us here for help to reset it.

Can't get anything to come up on HT Boards, fatal error blah blah blah
I even changed it to IPB 2.0 ? Am I doing anything wrong, can't even pm mods.

I don't think it's you, smokefan, I'm having the same trouble. We should just be patient a little longer until this is sorted out. Meanwhile, continue to post here.


You should be able to at least log in there and change your password, though.

This post has been edited by tooletta on Sep 4 2007, 04:22 AM

I sent an email to our webhost this morning regarding the issues we are having since the upgrade.