What Happened

[Stormboy]

Hi Pauler
Now I know were some of my post's went.
Thanks for the hard work!

 

[Ariella]

hi pauler; thanks for the update and for all the work done in restoring the site!! sorry to hear the police weren't more help when you contacted them but very glad to see things up and running now

 

[RestoreTheRiver]

Paul,

Thank you for your explanation of the issues and concerns, and for all your hard work. If the security concerns are, indeed, corrected, perhaps there should be a pointer to this thread when one logs on for a few days. That would insure that everyone sees it.

Michael

 

[Mickey1953]

I posted a thank you a few posts back, but I also wanted to say Paul, how appreciative I am that you have the gift, the desire to keep something like this up and running and are willing to. There are so many good things about the forum and sometimes obstacles, such as in life. It's like a virtual city in a way.

I would not know how or even where to begin to take care of a mission field such as this. So again thank you. And may your Easter be blessed as I pray God will bless all your days for this huge endeavor that you continue to work hard at for all of us to share in.

 

[newtaste]

I subscribed on 29 March. I've contacted PayPal to get my money back. Very reluctant now to subscribe again.

 

[tansy]

Thanks for the update....it sounds like a nightmare.

I was almost thinking, will this site get up and running again. It's the best Christian forum site that I've so far found, the most fun and interesting, and I enjoy it that it's not just Christians on here...one can talk with all sorts of people, on all kinds of topics.

So thank you very much for working so hard to keep everything going

 

[joyshirley]

Thank you, Paul and team, for everything you're doing to protect CF. I am blessed to be a part of this place and am thankful that the hacker didn't totally destroy the forum. God bless you all and may the Lord continue to guide you in all you do for CF and the folk who come here.

 

[nobdysfool]

If I can make a suggestion, it would be wise to test upgrades and updates on an offline copy of the site, to work out the bugs, and then roll the upgrade, with bug fixes, online after the testing has been done.

I know several things I've posted have disappeared, and I kept no copies. I may start doing so now.

Thanks for letting us know what happened.

 

[Josephus777]

I never knew all the hard work that goes into running and maintaining these sites May the Lord Bless everything that you set your hand to do

 

[newtaste]

Just a thought that this announcement should be more prominent on the home page so that members who have lost money know about it and can take immediate action to get their money back. I only found this announcement as i went searching for some explanation about what happened.

God bless.

 

[CindyisHis]

I'm sorry you had to go through this. It probably affected you more than anyone. Thank you for your hard work, and may the culprit to blame be caught.

 

[sweeticus]

I hope that backups will be done more often, so if there is another incident we don't have to roll back to a save that is more than two weeks old. I would think they would be done nightly.

 

[ZuZu]

Is this one of your email addresses? intuitiveelement@gmail.com
I got three emails telling me my subscription needed to be renewed and this address was different from the others.....

 

[JCFantasy23]

we had a copy of the database up, but then we had to close the forums so that we could transfer that copy of the database over to the official database server. when we did that, all the posts from this morning were lost...in retrospect, i should have just kept the forums closed for a bit longer.

The only thign I noticed is my avatar is gone, along with the tons I purchased for it, and the blessings reflect the spent money but again, no items. :/ I havent seen anyone else comment on this yet though, so perhaps this only happened to me or a small amount of people.

 

[sk8Joyful]

Hi Paul

Thanks for all your diligence!

Rejoyce in & with Jesus. GOD loves you perfectly & forevermore...

 

[0x87a]

Oh Paul! Thanks for the hardest work you did.
CF will be in my prayers.
Happy Easter!

~eley

 

[rahmiyn]

well, we restored the database from 3/27...so if you made all your posts after that, they are gone...sorry

This probably explains why all my changes to my profile (including a picture album) are no longer there.

Sorry to hear you all went through so much because of hacking. That's terrible, but having been subject to hacking before, I can well relate to the frustration. Although, the consequences to admin here must have been much more frustrating and work.

Praying your efforts to secure this site are successful! Blessings.

 

[Starr71]

first i want to thank everyone for their patience and support over the last week. it has been an arduous task and, although not 100% yet, it will get there.

on april 1, CF was hacked. no personal information was compromised as far as we can tell, so there are no worries there, but just in case...i would advise everyone to change their CF password to something completely unrelated to other important passwords that you use. i called the police and their internet division, but they were of no help...and anyway, i heard a voice message saying they would be out of the office for a couple of days anyway...no help.

i think the hacker was just after $$...some of you may have noticed funny advertisements that day, and a warning about the confiker virus in red. it looks like they changed the advertisements and my paypal information to get some extra cash.

IMPORTANT - for those that purchased SS status within the last couple of weeks or renewed their subscriptions in the last couple of weeks...whether your subscription either manually renews or autorenews, please reapply for SS status and make sure the email on it is pkim@intuitiveelement.com. that is the only email i will use for paypal.

i digress...i got really nervous about all this happening because of the specific account that was hacked. it was one of lee's old admin accounts that had not been demodded yet. they had full access to the admin control panel where they could have basically erased CF as we know it. for this not happening, i was incredibly thankful, but also very nervous.

i was already scheduled to get security patches and problem fixes for CF and was within days of having that done when this all happened. i felt that i could not wait days. i felt that waiting that long and have more attempts on CFwas more of a danger than trying to upgrade so CF could be patched up security wise. i hired a good programmer, but knew he didnt have the specific vbulletin experience required on a site like this. however, i felt that taking a chance in this direction was better than being a sitting duck...so i took the plunge and went for the upgrade. in retrospect, i underestimated how beastly the compliance issues with the modifications in relation to vbulletin...and also the sheer number of modifications that had to be changed and checked.

all of you know how the upgrade went, it was really rocky to be understated. there were so many technical problems on the back end to go into, but its safe to say that there was no end in sight even after i hired another programmer to help with the issues. so after about 4-5 days of troubleshooting and being down, i decided that we could not afford to go down this route any longer as none of the programmers could tell me what kind of timeframe we were looking at to get CF up, so we decided to head back and revert to the old board again.

this is where we stand today. the board is not 100% yet, but it will be in the near future. first, we are working on getting CF as secure as possible. many of the security issues that caused these problems have been patched and we are looking for more ways to make it more secure. some of the issues we are running into are the login issue, quick reply, rep system, pm's, and messaging issues so those are noted.

again, thank you for your prayers and support last week. Lord willing, we will never go through this again.

Thanks so much for all your hard work, It is greatly appreciated.

Prayers are still being said for everyone on the board and specially the staff work.

God bless each of yah's richly,
I pray In Jesus Christ' Name,
Amen

Happy Easter all.

 

[boneo]

thanks for letting us know what happened, sorry you've been the victim of a hacker.
I lurk much more than I post here, but I've still lost about 6 posts! lost a few pm's as well.
I missed CF a lot over the past week or so-keep up the good work

 

[Starr71]

Paul,

Thank you for your explanation of the issues and concerns, and for all your hard work. If the security concerns are, indeed, corrected, perhaps there should be a pointer to this thread when one logs on for a few days. That would insure that everyone sees it.

Michael

I think this is a good idea.

I posted a thank you a few posts back, but I also wanted to say Paul, how appreciative I am that you have the gift, the desire to keep something like this up and running and are willing to. There are so many good things about the forum and sometimes obstacles, such as in life. It's like a virtual city in a way.

I would not know how or even where to begin to take care of a mission field such as this. So again thank you. And may your Easter be blessed as I pray God will bless all your days for this huge endeavor that you continue to work hard at for all of us to share in.

I agree. This is like a virtual city... I have been so blessed being at this site.

Thank you, Paul and team, for everything you're doing to protect CF. I am blessed to be a part of this place and am thankful that the hacker didn't totally destroy the forum. God bless you all and may the Lord continue to guide you in all you do for CF and the folk who come here.

I second this...

I never knew all the hard work that goes into running and maintaining these sites May the Lord Bless everything that you set your hand to do

I couldn't do it. But I am very blessed that my brother here and his working staff are doing there best. That is all we can ask for. Bless you all richly, Indeed. Your all in my prayers.

I hope that backups will be done more often, so if there is another incident we don't have to roll back to a save that is more than two weeks old. I would think they would be done nightly.

NOW THIS IS A REALLY GOOD IDEA.