Forum was Hacked

[drcollie]

Hey Aaron,

The forum is hosted at GoDaddy, and they told me the older .php files are in V.Bulletin 3.x are vulnerable. If someone gets in there at the server level and wipes everything out (which they can do once they compromise the password) then they charge $ 300 to restore it and it takes 10 days to recover from a backup. So I figured better to just spend the money now and upgrade to 4.0 V.Bulletin and see if we can get out of someones crosshairs who has targeted this forum.

We should have the 4.0 version up in the next few days, not sure if the skin will stay on or not when its upgraded. I'll check out the ones you have linked....thanks!

[aaron]

You'll be starting from a blank slate - you can't port a 3.x skin to 4.x.

But a php file is a php file. If the vulnerability is at the server level, php files remain vulnerable.

[mcarey]

Duane-
I am having difficulty searching the forum. I keep getting the message that there are no matches, and I know that there are. Thanks-

[drcollie]

The forum has been upgraded, and the 'skin' is gone. Many of the controls will be in different places and buttons will be unfamiliar. Going to take a little time to sort it all out, but this should make for a better and more secure environment. I've got to get used to the new format as well, so we'll all have to play with the features and functions and see how it all works. We can put a new 'skin' on easily enough (That was the old Green and Tan interface), find another one that might look even better, or just keep this one in shades of blue/white. Aaron knows his way around the V.Bulletin formats better than I do, he may be able to assist us in tweaking things here to make if fun and unique.

Under this new software to to the upper right corner of the home page (on the light blue menu bar) and you will see a box to type into that has a magnifying glass. Type in what you want to search for, cllck on the magnifying glass symbol and it will then find it for you. For older posts and a more complete search that you can customize click on ADVANCED SEARCH just below that text box and specify more parameters.

[juliepooch]

The search options, including Advanced Search, need to be tweaked. I'm unable to search. When I searched "drcollie" only the treads he started are listed, none of his posts.

[Riddle]

Search single content type
Search type: Posts
User: riddle
Find posts by user rather than started thread

I've only started one thread so it was easy to determine that it worked.

[aaron]

Search should now be fully functional.

[drcollie]

Aaron,

How did you get so good on v.bulletin management? Self-taught or did you get schooled on it? I find it fairly complex myself, and hesitate to fool with it much for fear of blowing it all up.

[aaron]

Yes, self-taught. The admin panel can seem overwhelming, but it's actually pretty hard to break things - with most things that could mess up a forum they give you a warning or confirmation page before processing your command.