A hacking question...

[psophia17]

After reading Mary's post below, I have a question about the hacking...

Someone had very malicious intent when hacking into the private board that Mary belonged to, and it clearly was much worse than it originally came across. My question is how much further has this gone? I'm reading between the lines here, but if this has been going on for a long time, and Saartje posted with the approval of the mods, well...that tells me there is a risk to the BBB community in general, and that is what I think led to the public outing of the situation. Surely, a threat to our security is Lounge-worthy.

Is there any evidence that others on the BBB have been hacked into? Is the BBB itself protected from hackers?

[trumansmom]

Petra -

While I have no other evidence of any other hacking on the BBB, I do know that I posted yesterday that the Fields must have deleted a thread because neither Marisa nor I did. Later I found out they did not delete it. I have no idea how a thread can get deleted without someone with admin access doing it, so I immediately changed my password. I've had the same password on here for 4 1/2 years (dumb, I know), but now plan on changing it regularly for the safety of board. I'm not saying one of our accounts was hacked, because I have no proof of that happening. But I can't come up with anything else that makes sense.

I'm not trying to spread fear, just caution.


Jeanne
Mom to Truman 11/01 and Eleanor 4/04

[psophia17]

That's really weird...is there any way to track that sort of thing? Will the upgrade (there is an upgrade of some sort planned for the near future, right?) address security issues?

[trumansmom]

Is it okay if I don't answer that question? ;)

Jeanne
Mom to Truman 11/01 and Eleanor 4/04

[starrynight]

I'm concerned about the same thing. I never thought I would have to be concerned about that here. Other forums I have but here? Never. Now I'm a bit unnerved.

[stella]

Is it possible for someone with admin powers to see who did perform an admin task?

[trumansmom]

Honestly, this is the sort of question I don't feel comfortable answering. If I say "yes", everyone will call for blood and I would have just given a heads up to the culprit. If I say "no", I've just announced open season on the boards. See what I mean?

The Fields may choose to address this at a later date, but I don't feel it's my place.

Hope you understand.

Jeanne
Mom to Truman 11/01 and Eleanor 4/04

[Fairy]

Guys, just calm down, we're ok. The smart thing for all of us to do is simply change our PW, and then begin changing it on a regular basis, whatever that means to you. A good rule of thumb is every 90 days, if you're worried, then more often. Use the PW rules I'd indicated in my other post, and don't ask the mods or A&D what they intend to do for tracking, cuz that's something they need to take care of internally. No reason to worry about our use of the boards if we're just secure in our IS practices. And, ya know, reasonable ;-)

[bcky2]

yep, great advice. my bil is a major computer nerd and has set up some great protection for me but i still worry once in a while. thanks for the reminder that we all need to take that deep breath and just let it die down. by freaking out you give them the power they want.

[Fairy]

Absolutely true. Very good point.