Avsim hacked!

[Linguofreak]

Is there any indication of what the hackers actually did to these two servers?

What exactly happened to the hard drives could determine how much is actually recoverable.

EDIT: I've found something that says the paritition tables were destroyed. If it goes no further than that, the files still exist, but the map for finding them has been wiped and finding them will be the old "needle in a haystack" problem. If the hacker overwrote the drive with garbage, things will be pretty much unrecoverable.

 

[n122vu]

Obviously the hacker/hackers did know about the missing backups...

Which again makes me wonder about motive...

In my opinion, it was likely someone who
a) knew the server architecture behind the site, and
b) had a beef with either the site or one of its admins or a forum moderator

But this is pure speculation only, on my behalf. I have no basis for these other than assumption.

 

[bpops]

Really sucks...

Looks like a lot of people have thrown in their support though, and that they will be back online -- probably better than before!

 

[Artlav]

Is lack of backups a terminal problem?
Curious thing is that whole contents of that site still exists - shattered across the computers in the internet.
Putting it back together from that source could be tricky at best.

 

[PascalL]

But this is pure speculation only, on my behalf. I have no basis for these other than assumption.

Then, why speculate?

 

[Linguofreak]

I saw some mention that one suspect is a staff member who had been misusing his position to harvest user data for spamming and had been fired.

 

[Artlav]

I've found something that says the paritition tables were destroyed.

Where did you hear that?
If that is indeed the only problem, then they have nothing but a case of gross incompetence at hands.

 

[ar81]

If hackers attack companies, then jobs can be destroyed in the IT field, forcing lower wages in the IT market due to supply and demand. Since markets are globalized, then lower wages in a country means jobs fleeing in another, so the job losses will be equally distributed.

My bet is hackers are like bankers. They think they make money easily and they do not understand the crisis they are causing and how they can be victims of the economic crisis they created.

 

[ASCII]

If hackers attack companies, then jobs can be destroyed in the IT field, forcing lower wages in the IT market due to supply and demand. Since markets are globalized, then lower wages in a country means jobs fleeing in another, so the job losses will be equally distributed.

My bet is hackers are like bankers. They think they make money easily and they do not understand the crisis they are causing and how they can be victims of the economic crisis they created.

I disagree.
When hackers attack companies, jobs are created. More criminal activity = bigger police force.

Most hackers don't make a cent off of their activities. Much as a common vandal makes nothing off of a spray paint tag.
Attacks like these are more for disruption and mischief than personal gain.

I can guarantee that when a hacker attacks a site, the last thing on their mind is "how can I negatively affect the American IT industry".

 

[simonpro]

Aaah, Ar81 on bankers. The delusion has arrived

(edit)muskratluv! I haven't seen you on here in ages, good to know you're still around

 

[BrianJ]

I'ts very sad news indeed, and we are concerned, since some Orbiter add-on authors posted they work over there! (BrianJ?)

Of course, I have my own back-ups of everything. AVSIM always provided me with a very friendly and efficient service over the years. If they still want to host Orbiter add-ons when they're up-and-running again, I shall be glad to re-upload.

I say "if they still want to host Orbiter add-ons" since I wondered whether the number of downloads in recent years justified the space on their servers that all the Orbiter stuff used.

But it's a shame about all the "archive" add-ons by developers who may not be active anymore that will be lost :-(

Bleeding heck...do some people really have nothing better to do than try and cause this kind of grief?

 

[ASCII]

Aaah, Ar81 on bankers. The delusion has arrived

(edit)muskratluv! I haven't seen you on here in ages, good to know you're still around

Hey Simonpro!!
Yah I just traded up for a better screen name.

 

[Tex]

Off-topic, but is Orbit Hanger (and O-F) protected against things like this???

I just spoke to Vash, our server administrator, after hearing the news about AVSIM:

He confirmed that both Orbiter-Forum and Orbit Hangar have full FTP and database backups which are sent to an off-site location daily. I also maintain an FTP backup of Orbiter-Forum on my local PC for additional security. I can assure you our server is not easy to hack and runs all the latest and most secure software.

 

[bradfirj92]

I feel this particular incident helps to stress the importance of a robust backup solution. I've experienced more than my fair share of data-loss and malicious hackers for my limited years.
I've run or helped run 5 dedicated machines and a large number of websites for friends and aquaintances, and one of the questions I always ask is what's your backup solution and have you tested it in a worst case scenario.

One of my favourite tests was to write echo "hax" > /dev/sda as root, (this clobbers the file system) this provided an excellent situation to give the owner the chance to really test their backup system.

I know that most dedicated and co-lo hosts provide on and off-site, secure, backup systems and it does beg the question, with such a large and popular site, why was no hard media system (tape, DVD) employed?

 

[PascalL]

why was no hard media system (tape, DVD) employed?

Tom answered this question: not enough man power, some admin has left in the past year. See the remplacement forum, I gave the link.

 

[bradfirj92]

I'm sorry but that's not an excuse.

---------- Post added at 07:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:24 PM ----------

If you can afford the money for two powerful dedicated servers you can afford the fee to have the hosting or co-lo company do the hard backups for you.

 

[PascalL]

he does not sell that as an excuse, he admits this was a mistake. Always easier to be clever afterwards.

 

[Linguofreak]

Where did you hear that?
If that is indeed the only problem, then they have nothing but a case of gross incompetence at hands.

It seems to have been cross-posted to a number of forums along with the press release quoted here. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble tracing it back to the original source...

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?p=1307638
http://www.flightsimworld.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=169140

And any number of other sites...

 

[DaveS]

The real and true source for the partition table loss comes from Mr Allensworth in this post on the temp AVSIM forum: http://linux.myalbemarle.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=92&start=0


Edit:
It begins with the last sentence of paragraph 5 and continues into paragraph 6.

 

[Dig Gil]

With this event I'd better start back-uping my websites too. Just in case (in spite of my websites are on the lowest importance).