What the..? Is the website hacked?

ThePigSlave said:

I noticed that as well. I suppose that hacking in general shows little to no sense of morale, but honestly, a guinea pig care website? That has got to be some sort of all-time low.

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No, while that's pretty low, I can do you one better. A similar hacker group hacked a webpage run by someone in my town a year or so back. The page was for a charity event being run in the name of a little boy who died of cancer. Seriously, they hacked a page for a deceased child's charity foundation. Really impressive. /eyeroll.

Just want to let folks know that we had fixed the hack, but we are also in the middle of a variety of other forum updates. The forum will likely be experiencing a several temporary closures today while get various things done. Not to worry. This is us working on it. Sorry for the inconvenience.

mufasa said:

No, while that's pretty low, I can do you one better. A similar hacker group hacked a webpage run by someone in my town a year or so back. The page was for a charity event being run in the name of a little boy who died of cancer. Seriously, they hacked a page for a deceased child's charity foundation. Really impressive. /eyeroll.

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That is just repulsive. Whoever did that has no sense of right from wrong.

Don't forget that if it still looks like something is wrong, you have to clear your cache.

Just as a point of complete disgust (and to let you know this seems to be a guinea pig community-wide issue), The Guinea Pig Forum (https://theguineapigforum.co.uk/) which is the UK equivalent to this site has also been hacked by some weird Syrian pro-government hackers. If any of the admins know how to resolve the issue- I'm pretty sure they use a similar software- I bet they would appreciate a facebook message with some tips, as they're currently stuck on a temporary forum while they try to resolve it. WHY ON EARTH WOULD HACKERS TARGET WEBSITES LIKE THIS. I literally cannot comprehend it.

I'm not on that forum, but just looking at their footer, it doesn't look like they were on the most current release of vB. Prior to this last hack, we had done a ton of server hardening ($$$) and security measures put in place. I think that's why, when they found the vulnerability, they didn't get to do as much damage as they could have on our site. In addition, I had previously moved the whole site and server off my bigger server onto its own new, more secure platform.

I (my tech guys, really) did discover the vulnerability that allowed my site to be hacked last weekend. That was fixed. I doubt its related to the hack on the UK site. It was a very separate add-on that I no longer use. In addition to fixing that, I now have an additional firm that I'm paying to keep all of the forum add-ons and such current. It's easy for things to get slightly behind. And we have a lot of bells and whistles on this forum. I want to keep things interesting and fun here!!

And we added some additional security measures as well. We'll never be perfectly safe from malicious hackers (no one is), but I'm doing my very best to keep us as safe as possible. Software, hosting, security and consulting costs me in the neighborhood of $500 a month to keep the forum running smoothly. If someone from their forum wants to email me for advice ([email protected]) or references of people who can help them, since they are using the same forum software, I can help that way.

But, I will say, it's not a guinea pig community issue, it's a vbulletin issue. Forum software is complicated with lots of moving pieces. They happen to use the same forum software. You have to stay on top of managing it in a big way.

You've put a lot of effort and money into this forum and website, and you can really see that! Well done on keeping everything safe and secure! I'll message the gpforum with your email address; I don't think their website is, being brutally honest, as well-funded as yours is, so it may be that their response is limited. Still, it's always great to have a helping hand or at least throw the offer out there. ^^

I dont know if it has anything to do with the hacking, but I've been having troubles veiwing photos ( not in threads, the tab on top). I use an Android tablet (I view the site in a browser, not an app) if that makes any difference.
If yiu need more clarification I'd be happy to post a screen shot of what shows up when i go there.
Thanks!

@Shelbz, I've responded to the UK person.

@Coughingcolours, Regarding the photos, I have still have one upgrade to do on the photo gallery software, so let's wait until after that's done before I try debugging your photo issue. I'll let you know. Thanks.

No problem! Its really not too big of a deal to me, I just thought I'd let you know while the topic was up. Can't wait to see the upgrade!
I love this forum, thank you so much for everything you do for us. Without your forum and all the wonderful people to here, i shudder to think about how unhappy my babies would be.