Here’s a haiku to remind you. I call it “Be alert; the world needs more lerts”:

Obnoxious hackers
in yr base killing yr d00dz,
ruining yr site

Srsly.

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–

Moving on to Day 5 of my website being hacked and thus down for the count. I’m not sure how long it takes to clean an infected site, but my hosting provider is not doing a very good job of keeping me in the loop, at this point. I’ve run a virus scan on my home computer to make sure it’s not infected with any viruses itself, and so far so good. Then I told my host that I couldn’t access my site either via cPanel or FTP. They reset my password, so now I can log in, but as for who’s supposed to be cleaning the damn thing and making sure it’s non-malicious again, it’s anyone’s guess. The last email I received from them said first that THEY would be cleaning it, and then said something about ME cleaning it. Huh?

I’m really hoping that THEY are going to clean it, because if it’s up to me, this mofo is never going to be online again.

In any case, communication is getting sketchy. I asked if they could give me an ETA on the cleaning process, since it’s majorly frustrating to have no idea what’s going on, nor when things might be back to normal. I’ll let you know when I find out.

Last night I had horrible dreams that my website had been hacked, and that the people I was talking to at my hosting provider were actually the hackers themselves, trying to screw me over even further. Either that or the emails I was sending were being re-routed to the hackers’ inbox, and they were impersonating my hosting service. Neither idea was very comforting, so I’m feeling particularly paranoid this morning.

The most frustrating part of this whole thing, to me, is the way that everyone wants their website to be safe, but no reliable information seems to be available on how to accomplish this task. If I search for security suggestions online, I feel that this just gives me inherently flawed information. I mean, if *I* can access it, then so can any would-be (or actual) hackers. These tricks are known; their hacks are not. And it drives me up the wall when I get “suggestions” like “Don’t use ‘password’ as your password,” or “Make sure your password is strong.” Thanks, pal. I’m a little beyond basic computing here; I need something a bit more advanced than a non-dictionary-based password.

And the ironic thing? I did an interview yesterday with an RCMP officer who works in the cyber crime division. It was for a piece I wrote for my column on the subject of cyber stalking, but it was bizarre, nevertheless, to be discussing a different kind of cyber crime as I tried to deal with a personal attack.

I doubt I will ever find out who the hackers who took down my site really are. That makes me angry, especially since I believe that cyber crimes should be taken as seriously as real-life crimes—particularly when they have real-life consequences, such as disrupting a person’s business or stealing a person’s identity. I have no way of knowing what the intent of these hackers was, and perhaps they were only being mischievious, but the fact remains that I have now lost two work days trying to deal with the mess, and I’m about to lose another. That should be punishable. At the very least, those who abuse the digital world should be temporarily banned from it, to give them a taste of their own medicine. Being offline, when it’s your choice, is much different than having the plug pulled.

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Screenshot from the Black Heart site, earlier today

Granted, WordPress only released version 2.8.4 on Wednesday, but the message remains: ALWAYS UPGRADE YOUR VERSION OF WORDPRESS IMMEDIATELY!

I was surprised to see that my site had been hit, mostly because a) I don’t get that much traffic to be worth hacking (obviously, I’m no Google or Amazon.com), and b) my site offers boobs. I’m not saying that offering T&A provides anyone immunity to hacking, but I was under the impression that most hackers—indeed, most people in general—enjoy boobs and would thus be loathe to hack a site offering views of naked boobs for free. Which Black Heart does. So you should check it out, now that it’s been rescued by the fine folks at HostGator.

Anyway, if you’re running WordPress and haven’t been hacked yet, you should go upgrade your software NOW!!

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