Site issues - hacked

[~Z~]

Appears there was a hack that got its way onto the server through the forum software. It was running some rogue processes that were pinging servers over in Australia and slowing down the site a bit. I was able to stop the processes from running, but I need to make a number of patch upgrades over the next few days. If some functionality goes away like links at the top, please be patient as I work to get those back. When the patches are put in, I have to redo all of the menu systems on the site. Thanks for your understanding.

As far as I can tell, no data has been lost and all forum posts/gallery pics/wiki entries are still in tact.

[AARR]

I wondered what was going on but thought it was my computer (I was on a little notebook at the time)

[Big Frank]

THOSE BASTARDS

[JANGAJONGA]

THOSE BASTARDS

[tsinoms]

over in Australia

See it's always the quiet ones who will get ya.... LOL.

[~Z~]

From the logs, looks like a few Egyptian IP addresses were the root of the problem in Cairo...
So far things seem clean now, but I still need to do patches to the message board/wiki/gallery, so some functionality could be lost while doing this. Don't have a date set when I'm going to patch each thing, just doing it when I have a few free hours...

[Jochs]

Oh, so it wasn't my dialup connection slowing me down this time.

You can imagine how slow things are on dialup when hackers are screwing with this site.

[amtrak1007]

hey Z how's the hackers? i'm having super slow server database response this morning...

[Y@]

hey Z how's the hackers? i'm having super slow server database response this morning...

Same here. Been noticing that it's been rather slow and even completely unresponsive at times the last few days.

[CharlieX90]

Site has worked 100 percent fine for me

[sd70accsxt700]

(09:24:13) sd70accsxt700: Hey Z any problems right now
(09:24:28) sd70accsxt700: It is taking forever to do anything right now.
(09:24:53) sd70accsxt700: Past three threads I hav tried to post to took over a min to make the post.
(09:26:50) Scooterb: notice the same thing MAtt it was like that about 8am also
(09:27:14) Scooterb: Wonder if the monkeys need to be fed?

I dont know if you seen it in the shotbox Z but there are issues this moring. Not sure if it relates to this or not.

Just right now 10 min later I cleaned up the computer at home here, and it got faster for about five minuest and right back to verry verry slow at anything again.

[Norm]

Matt,

Do you use your laptop on WIFI a lot? Mine was working as advertised till I went live on a WIFI connection in North Carolina in June, then it began running slow.

Just a thought.

[~Z~]

I was having issues getting the site to respond in a decent fashion around 8am as well, so I know it wasn't just TTAM's PC. Changed around a few settings during lunch, but still need to set aside a lot of time to do the upgrades to the various bits of software here. Used to just schedule these things when the wifey would be away for her overnight trips, but those just don't happen anymore. Hard to find 6-7 hours of uninterupted time to do work like that, but I'll make it happen soon enough.

[sd70accsxt700]

Norm I was on the home computer, no lap top. I actually started using the lap top a hour ago and everything is fine. Did not think to get the lap top out when I was having problems and compair the two.

[~Z~]

Looks like the update of the message board files went smoothly, will do the gallery and wiki a bit later but those upgrades shouldn't affect people like the short downtime of the message board does. Thanks for your patience!

[amtrak1007]

One, two, one, two

[~Z~]

Attempted to upgrade the photo gallery last night, didn't go too well so I backed off and put things back to how they were.
Tonight, I upgraded, everything appeared fine, wrote all database changes, and now I can't get the gallery bridged back to the message board... For probably the next 24 hours, people can view the gallery, just can't log in and upload photos or make comments. Hope to have that fixed soon.

[~Z~]

alright, you should now be able to upload to the gallery. Gallery looks a little bit different, upload tool is more modern, will document later today
Still need to make menus at the top of the gallery and add the railroadfan.com logos back.
I should mention.. if the gallery asks you to choose a theme or layout, choose "Curve"