We were hacked.

Monday, 31 October 2005

After having spent the whole weekend restructuring the server farm to better address the growth of the number of blogs that we are hosting, we woke up this morning to an alert that our servers had been hacked.

The result was that motime.com was down, posting and commenting was impossible, yet all of your blogs were still able to be read, thanks to the way that we have built the platform.

I don't know if this was a Halloween prank or just someone's idea of weekend fun, but it sure was not fun for us. Or for you.

As far as I know, no blogs were touched by these foul-fingered ne'er do wells, just the platform that supports the system. Oh well. Stuff happens and, unfortunately, there are those who get their kicks by applying their technical know-how to wasting other people's time. We have installed even greater security controls against this type of hack and made sure, to the best of our ability, that your blog's content is securely protected and backed up.

We're sorry that it took so long getting back online, but apart from fixing the platform, we needed to take some precautionary and defensive measures against future attacks. There may still be some nagging problems as we try to clean out all the nasty code.

posted by: howard at 14:49 | link | comments (24) |
advisory
Bookmark this link on:

Comments:

#1 01 November 2005 - 01:52

Thanks for all you do for us mo'timers. All for free too! I appreciate it all.
Thanks.
Reggie

Reggie

#2 01 November 2005 - 03:24

thanks howard! champ!

crysalis

#3 01 November 2005 - 10:34

Thanks, Howard. I, for one, am not gonna complain if it takes a bit to get it cleaned up and running right again.

I appreciate your hard work on MoTime for us!

Ladyinthemoon

#4 01 November 2005 - 11:34

I agree, Howard. All of us use motime to enrich our lives. And that wouldn't be possible without you! We appreciate all you do for us. Thank you so much.

~Jim

nobleknightil

#5 01 November 2005 - 12:25

Thanks Howard,

Way to go, mate!

Lewana

#6 01 November 2005 - 13:16

thanks, howard. your efforts are definitely appreciated.

barkalot

#7 01 November 2005 - 14:26

Your appreciation is most welcome, everyone, thanks for taking the time to let us know.

howard

#8 01 November 2005 - 18:33

Thanks Howard.

pressedflat

#9 01 November 2005 - 18:36

Well done to Howard and his team for so quickly sorting out the crap left by the creeps !

GIBREFORM

#10 02 November 2005 - 06:57

3 cheers for Howard. Thanks. Will check my blogs for hacks. Some people are so filled with self-hate it boils over into things like this. Will pray for whoever to get a broader vision and seek the good.

MaryKathryn

#11 02 November 2005 - 08:54

When I tryed to open my blog I was scared.

Thanks very much to Howard and Motime Crew for your inconditional support.

;-)

[w]

wendy

#12 02 November 2005 - 17:05

I'm late joining in with my THANK YOU but oh I don't mean it any less. three cheers for Howard and crew. hip hip... hoo. ray.

thank you----

120pages

#13 05 November 2005 - 04:51

*hugs H* You (and whoever assists you or works with you) work so hard so that we can blog and I am grateful. Sei veramente fantastico, grazie mille!

alohalani

#14 05 November 2005 - 05:55

Oh my God Howard you are a great saviour!

pinkharvest

#15 05 November 2005 - 07:35

I wish people would stop writing LOL

pinkharvest

#16 05 November 2005 - 07:36

LOL

FANLESS

#17 07 November 2005 - 00:07

LOL! thanks howard and the motime crew.

jenius

#18 09 November 2005 - 22:08

Great work, Howard. Thanks you.

dpassmore

#19 13 November 2005 - 01:38

thanx Howard for everything.
but...i still can't post...bummer...

Rytzy

#20 13 November 2005 - 01:43

Rytzy try this, click here.

howard

#21 18 November 2005 - 02:47

Good the attack was effectively counteracted.

I have a proposal which, I believe, could represent a value-added feature attracting new bloggers to motime: it would be nice if there was a feature which allowed to automatically create a PDF file of one's own blog or of a given month. I am not a software specialist, but I believe that would not be difficult as I know there are HTML to PDF solutions available.

This would be a really great feature which nobody provides (though I am aware some 3rd party Web sites sell the service of creating 'prints' of blogs).

At the same time, a PDF file creation facility would provide some backup peace of mind for bloggers against unpredictable events.

JoeLondon

#22 18 November 2005 - 09:08

I will look into the feasibility of such a feature and put it into the suggestion list, thanks. Most, if not all, of your blog's pages are automatically cached by Google, btw. So for emergency purposes, if you enter your blog's name and some keywords from the page in question, and then click the "cached" link in the search results instead of the main link, voilà, you can see a piece of history.

howard

#23 24 November 2005 - 03:21

thanks howard
means alot