RMC:STATEMENT.

[POSTMAN]

Some of you may be aware that we were hacked at the end of June, twice. After the 1st hack the infected files were deleted, various scans were carried out, and master passwords were changed. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, the hacker got in again. He then claimed to have all my forum files and the database, which in all honesty, he probably has.

What he can do with the database, if he looked hard enough, is, he could get all of our e-mail addresses, and if he looked even deeper, although they are masked, he could pull out some passwords. Anyone worried about this can change their e-mail address and password in their 'user control panel'. If anyone has problems doing this please contact me and I'll sort it out for you.

Also, if the password you used on RMC matches your own e-mail account password, especially if its the one you used on here, then it may be best to change that password just in case.

It's hard to say what these hackers will do with the info they have but most just hack, see their name in lights then move on to their next target.

I can only apologise about all this and I know it's a pain.

As to how we got hacked, there could be many reasons. Perhaps the server had an infected script which was accidentally added by another account of my host, some of you may remember the medicinal adverts we had while ago, it's hard to say if that had anything to do with it, as apparently, none of the sites on his servers got hacked.

Another reason could be the site software. I was one small update away from being fully updated, and although I had downloaded the update I didn't patch it in straight away as I was busy working on the new site and board, and busy at work with our revision.

We also had some official phpbb modifications on the site which may have had an effect as they were first put on when I started the board and no updates for those were available.

It's hard to say the exact reason, I'm sure others will have and have had their say, at the end of the day the bastard done it, and hopefully it's behind us now.

This board is fully updated,and trust me it will always stay that way,with no dodgy modifications at all.

Certain scripts have been disabled on the server, only the basic ones the site needs are enabled and various other security measures have been taken by my host.


While you are all here reading this, no doubt you would have, or should have, seen the new set of rules and guidelines, there are enough links around, so there is no excuse not to follow them. We will now strongly enforce these rules, because, previously some posts went over the top, and became, at times, very boring especially with regard to certain subjects. Many of you will agree with them, some won't which is unfortunate, but this is the way RMC is now going to be..