Comments on: Attack on harryrclarke.com

By: Francis Xavier Holden

Francis Xavier Holden — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 03:00:29 +0000

harry – I guess in six months time you’ll be able to retrieve everything from the way back machine?

By: Jacques Chester

Jacques Chester — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 07:03:03 +0000

As for the attack here, I’m not familiar enough with what was done to speculate, but the most common attacks are against WordPress holes and improperly setup installations (loose permissions etc).

By: Jacques Chester

Jacques Chester — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 07:00:48 +0000

FXH — the perils of shared hosting. That blog is still on Dreamhost.

By: hc

hc — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 02:34:22 +0000

Essentially FXH they take over and corrupt your site. Unless you are backed up you can lose everything. I was backed up with a lag of a few weeks and had versions of some posts elsewhere.

The attack was pure vandalism. No particular beef with me. The intent was simply destruction.

By: Francis Xavier Holden

Francis Xavier Holden — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 02:23:17 +0000

jacques – I don’t know if the irony is intended but when I clicked your page I got a blank page with:

“Error establishing a database connection”

By: Francis Xavier Holden

Francis Xavier Holden — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 02:19:19 +0000

harry /jacques what is the nature of the attack? Can you point to a website describing?

I’m running a normal type website based on WP. (I must say its bloody marvelous)

By: Jacques Chester

Jacques Chester — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:54:10 +0000

Harry; You might point your host in the direction of tarsnap.com. I've outlined by backup scheme here.

By: rabee

rabee — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:11:12 +0000

almost all the materials you write in wp is stored in a database not files. usually a mysql database. this is provided by your provider, I hope???? you didn’t install mysql did you?

so what you want is for the mysql database to be backed up repeatedly. you can do this remotely from your office you know. you should ask your provider about it.

. I’m very sorry to hear that your mother passed away.

By: hc

hc — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 11:30:34 +0000

The hacker screen appeared this morning with lots of swear words and a defense of the attack. I contacted my host in the US and reinstalled a backup dated January 6. If I can access missing posts, I’ll reinstall them. We will talk soon Christina.

Apart from posts all comments that appeared after January 6 also vanished as a consequence of the hack. I feel discomfit as these were valued very highly.

Rabee, I installed WP myself at a US site. What I want is a daily backup – full backup plus incremental backups. The hosting service reinstalled the old backup but I missed files since the backup. They have given me instructions on how to improve security. I’ll read and learn. It could have been much, much worse.

By: conrad

conrad — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 02:05:05 +0000

Having got the spam screen this morning, they’re obviously going for hard and important targets. I guess you can take it as complement.