Call homeland security.

thats not fun

Were you *hacked* or did they just guess you password?

not real sure yet. Our password wasn't real strong... (not my doing) but i don't think the host has real strong security in place either.

What host are you using?

What's your new password? /biggrin.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" />

What's your new password? /biggrin.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" />

/thumbsupsmileyanim.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":thumbsani:" border="0" alt="thumbsupsmileyanim.gif" /> I FOUND THE HACKER! I FOUND THE HACKER! I FOUND THE HACKER! /thumbsupsmileyanim.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":thumbsani:" border="0" alt="thumbsupsmileyanim.gif" />

hehe just kidding

QUOTE(BoldStepDesign @ Jul 14 2006, 05:37 PM)

What's your new password? /biggrin.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" />

/thumbsupsmileyanim.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":thumbsani:" border="0" alt="thumbsupsmileyanim.gif" /> I FOUND THE HACKER! I FOUND THE HACKER! I FOUND THE HACKER! /thumbsupsmileyanim.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":thumbsani:" border="0" alt="thumbsupsmileyanim.gif" />

hehe just kidding

HEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How'd you know?

I"M KIDDING. JOKING AROUND. I AM NOT THE HACKER

Have you notified your host? they may be able to tell you how it happened.
Then you can make sure to remove whatever insecure tool allowed this.

Luvaly. /dry.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="<_<" border="0" alt="dry.gif" />

/laugh.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":lol:" border="0" alt="laugh.gif" /> It's crossed my mind once...ok, make that a few times...to wonder how hackers do stuff.

Mainly through weak passwords. The really good hackers will find loop wholes to slip into. One way they get in is through insecure scripts. Then take advantage of these security holes to upload malicious files that will then do what it wants with your account. And if the server isn't up to date, they can sometimes get access to the entire server through a security hole there.

The best way to guard against hackers is to check EVERTHING that ever comes in from a client and then neutralize it in case it is malicious. And when I say everything, I mean everything. Even cookies. That and have a good password.

I've experienced a few "hacks" now, and in every one of them it was just an exploit for a security hole in a piece of popular software. If you keep any scripts you run up-to-date and patched then you should be fine. They aren't targetting your site deliberately, just any site that is running this vulnerable software.

On the other hand if someone is targetting your site only then you've probably got a bit more to worry about (depending on how good they are!)...

But do take a look at their source!: /biggrin.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" />

And that is why I write my own software... no more hacker/spammer bots going around that I am venerable to. /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

EDIT: and if you have someone targeting you... well, you have bigger problems to worry about (unless it's just a clueless kittyscript stalker).

Personally, I'm not worried about how they got in. I'm pretty sure I know what happened there.

My main question was weather or not I needed to report it to the police or not. Not that it matters now, I think its been sent to the FBI and Homeland...

I'm curious to know what is common legal steps taken after a hack.

The answer to that question then: IMO there is no point - this happens many thousands of times per day*. Unless you suffer financial loss as a result, the authorities are almost certainly not going to be interested.

*Source: Web server attacks 'growing fast'

I wouldn't worry about getting the police on this. Nexonen is right, this happens all the time. At my last job, one of our servers got rooted, and changed all the the index files to each site on the server, to an anti-bush anti-war page.

There wasn't really much we could do about it execpt fix it, and take steps to make sure it didn't happen again.

I have seen several shared hosting server knocked out by a program that changes all the index files.

Until it hits a certain cash value in damage there isn't much to do about it than just cleaning up and protecting against the next attack.