Comments on: Mediation Channel hacked: a cautionary tale about security, safety online

By: Diane Levin

Diane Levin — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:57:00 +0000

Steve and Tom, I really appreciate your concern and support! Knowing I’ve got you guys in my corner makes all the difference.

Debra, glad you liked my message for hackers! I’d send along the same greetings to whoever it was who told you to burn in hell. And by all means feel free to apply liberally as needed. (Just don’t tell the other mediators I said that.)

Julie, thanks for your message. I know you’re new to blogging, so just be careful and follow the advice of those I linked to in this post. I appreciate your kind comment!

By: Julie Weishaar

Julie Weishaar — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:44:57 +0000

Diane,

I am so sorry you had this happen to you. Thank you for sharing your unfortunate experience with us to help us protect ourselves.

By: Debra Healy

Debra Healy — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:02:25 +0000

Wow – I’m sorry to hear about this. I’m amazed at the things people spend their time doing. I received a BURN IN HELL tweet the other day. . .I let ‘em know it was too late. . . sizzle.

I love your response to the hackers and ask your permission to plagiarize it in the future if necessary.

Take care.
Debra

By: steve mehta

steve mehta — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:40:36 +0000

Diane,
I am sorry to hear about the trouble that you had to go through with your blog. Blogging can be a lot of work (joyous, but still work) without having to go through this kind of hassle.

By: Tom Kosakowski

Tom Kosakowski — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:33:15 +0000

Scary story. Thanks for keeping us updated. Good luck with recovery efforts.

By: Diane Levin

Diane Levin — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:05:00 +0000

Thanks, Phil! It’s great to know you’re on my side.

You know what they say about lemons and lemonade! It just made sense to take this opportunity to remind everyone how important it is to take precautions and be prepared.

By: Philip J. Loree Jr.

Philip J. Loree Jr. — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:22:57 +0000

Diane,

I am terribly sorry to hear about the hacking of Mediation Channel. I am sure all or most of your readers are at least as angry as I am about it, although not quite as angry as you must be.

On the brighter side, you’ve managed to turn this very unfortunate event into a learning experience for the rest of us. I think all bloggers (including yours truly) would be well advised to read and heed your advice.

Thanks again for sharing!

Phil

By: Diane Levin

Diane Levin — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:13:12 +0000

Amanda, Michael, and John, thanks for your support. Michael, that’s great advice – one which I wish now I’d thought of. I’ll add that to my repertory of hack-recovery tricks.

Amanda, I really appreciate your kind words! Great point about passwords – there are all kinds of tools out there to help you create strong ones. I would add, don’t rely on passwords alone to protect you. I had strong passwords, and that wasn’t enough to stop the hackers. Protection takes place across a number of levels – updated software, strong passwords, security measures, and hypervigilance. And that’s why it’s so important to prepare for recovery.

By: John Lassey

John Lassey — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 09:14:53 +0000

Thank you for the excellent advice, Diane.

By: michael webster

michael webster — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 01:19:16 +0000

I would add one other thing, have another domain name that you own that you can forward to and run your backup there.

For example, when bizop.ca was hacked, I had uploaded my backup, and redirected bizop.ca to fraudlaw.ca, for several days.

It worked very well, and I had time to deal with the hack. Which was the result of me leaving an old wp script online even though I use mt.