Is someone trying to hack our forum?

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davidh
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Re: Is someone trying to hack our forum?

Post by davidh »

Rupert

You need a stiffer section!!

D
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solentgal
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Re: Is someone trying to hack our forum?

Post by solentgal »

Yes this is happening to me too (only just seen this thread)..........I have now ticked the "always log me in box" and that cured it for a week or so...just logged me straight in automatically.....until today, so I have just re-set the auto and we'll see what happens. Annoying though isn't it!!
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Pat
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Re: Is someone trying to hack our forum?

Post by Pat »

Auto login will get disabled if something tidies up and deletes your cookies (little file saved on PC). Then it doesn't know who you are and you need to login again. Sometimes security software gets set to delete cookies, especially at work, when it just becomes a pain to keep logging in.
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cweed
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Re: Is someone trying to hack our forum?

Post by cweed »

Hello.
I also 'exceeded my log in' attempts on my first attempt.
As a non techy, is this situation possibly going to corrupt my PC?
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Ed
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Re: Is someone trying to hack our forum?

Post by Ed »

This won't in any way effect your own computer.....

however, you should always take care in any open public area on the internet. We take a lot of care to moderate this forum, but we can't take responsibility for anything that you might download from here or places you might go from a link from here.

Anyway, I am not exactly sure what is happening.....and we are certainly on 'orange alert' but this happens from time to time and isn't much out of normal.

I think for the non-techies, it could be best explained like this:

All forums are constantly attacked by 'spam-bots' and 'auto-hackers' - It is just a fact of life. These are automatic programs run by 'nasty' people who are trying to get into a 'forum' so that they can do a number of annoying things:

a) Sell us Viagra or a million other dodgy deals you don't want.
b) Provide links to Porn sites to encourage you to visit...and build up their own Google rankings
c) Provide links to just plain old boring normal sites for the same reasons as above
d) Upload a link, which leads to a virus or malware held somewhere else - encouraging you to download it.
e) Other things - I am sure - I don't want them in to find out what they can do!! :-)

Because of this continual risk, we have a range of security tools, techniques and policies that we use to prevent 'bots' or 'automatic attacks' getting in. Now, for obvious reasons, I am not going to explain what they all are. Some are simple and some are very devious bits of code put in by Dr Neil. Some you would be aware of.....and some not...

A few weeks ago, we were under attack from a bunch of spam-bots from Russian and Romania, who were trying to create new log-ins, but as we have a system where every new member has to be moderated by us....they couldn't get through.....but they tried. Dr Neil made some adjustments and we stopped that for now.

Now, we have some new attacks.

They have 'bots' which are most probably copying user-names and then trying to log-on with standard passwords. Our system only allows a small number of attempts, before locking you out for a period of time and making you sign in again next time. So as long as no-one has any stupid passwords, then this method should keep them out.

But.....it does rely on you all using sensible and secure passwords. If anyone is using something like: 'password' or 'cvrda' or 'forum' or '2010' or '123456' or your name or anything as simple as that......we could have problems - so don't!

But the point is.....this isn't evidence of anything 'failing'. The attacks happen all the time.... you are just seeing the evidence for these attacks happening and our security system doing what it is supposed to do - Keep the bots out!

So don't worry too much....

even if they did get in (and that does happen every now and again) we would remove the posts and their accounts very quickly. You just need to be sensible. If you suddenly see a post selling you Viagra or asking you to download some porn....don't do it! Just post another thread alerting us to it and we will deal with it asap.

Very few hacking attempts try to break the forum, It is not in the interest of a parasite to do that. If we were really the target of a full-on hacking attempt, rather than the continual annoyance of spam-bots....it would be a very different thing indeed! Lets hope we don't have to deal with that!

So keep cool - you shouldn't be in any danger.

It is curious to me that I have not had this happen at all. Which does make me wonder if the bots are only attacking people who use Internet Explorer rather than Firefox or Chrome.

If it happens again to anyone, please do just say what browser you are using.

keep safe

eib
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Pat
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Re: Is someone trying to hack our forum?

Post by Pat »

I only use Internet Explorer 8 and 6 (at work) for the forum and it has not happened to me at all either at home or work. I'm in and out a lot especially if I'm doing some work on the main site.
Nigel
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Re: Is someone trying to hack our forum?

Post by Nigel »

Seems to happen to me regularly (using IE8)
Rupert
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Re: Is someone trying to hack our forum?

Post by Rupert »

I'm using IE no idea what Number, and it has happened 3 times so far. Just changed to password to something very tricky (and different to what I use elsewhere) so I'll probebly shut myself out, now...
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neil
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Re: Is someone trying to hack our forum?

Post by neil »

I use chrome. It happens to me. As Ed says, it's a minor inconvenience compared to letting the scum in and everyone being inundated with dodgy personal messages and the forums being littered with spam.

If we stopped the search engines from searching and archiving the forum then this would help and slow things down, but then this would stop new people from finding us via google etc. The reason why this forum is attractive to spammers is that it's active. If we all stopped posting they would go away.
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Rupert
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Re: Is someone trying to hack our forum?

Post by Rupert »

It does appear to be part and parcel of life on the internet - Ed's post was very informative - it is easy to forget how much goes on in the background to ensure we can spout nonsense about boats!
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Pat
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Re: Is someone trying to hack our forum?

Post by Pat »

If it's happening to you please could you post here if it is also happening on other sites where you log in and save login details - Y&Y forum for example.
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