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InsanelyHacked!


ColdFusion

So it appears someone with nothing better to do took it upon themselves to bring down the site for no good reason. They used an Invision PowerBoard exploit which allowed them to gain root access to the database, and after backing it up for their own gratification and future exploitation, they deleted it. I guess this is some people's idea of fun, but the simple fact is: it's a serious crime. So serious in fact, that the investigation has been passed to the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), and we have been able to provide them with a number of leads thanks to some sterling work from our excellent mods!

 

We'd like to take this opportunity to appologise for the fact that your email addresses have been compromised and may be passed/sold on to third parties who may like to inform you from time to time that is indeed possible to double the size of your genitalia and perform like a god or goddess in the bedroom. This is extremely unfortunate, but we can assure you that your passwords are safely encrypted on our server so we should be free of account abuse. However, if your password is not particularly strong, we recommend you change it to something stronger ASAP. This is because commonly used passwords could be compared against a list of their encrypted versions, so passwords such "hello" are really not a wise choice. We recommend that your password be at least 8 characters long and contain a mixture of letters and numbers.

 

When we purchased InsanelyMac we wrongly assumed that it was set up securely, and since the hosting equipment was part of the purchase, we saw no immediate reason to move the hosting away from ThePlanet. Obviously this incident has forced us to look carefully at the security arrangements, and as a result we have migrated the site over to our own servers, patched the forum to the latest version and added another layer of authentication where required. We have also revised our back-up strategy so that any future incidents can be recovered from more quickly. So despite being blackmailed by those claiming to be responsible for the attack, we are pleased to announce the return of InsanelyMac, now more secure than ever.


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Great to See InsanelyMac back up, and for those of you starting to point fingers towards hackint0sh, they have no grudge against the actual site, only some of the questionable Administrator instances in the past.

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I agree with ASAP18 and Alessandro17 and Hagar. We need to stop trying to point fingers and placing the blame on this person or that dev. That is the problem with this community. Something happens and it immediately turns into a grudge war with people lashing out against one another. Friendly competition is a good thing...it keeps us all striving for things to be better. However, at the end of the day, we need to be able to step back and share some beers. Let the authorities deal with finding those who are responsible. Our energies are better used making the community better... more how-to's, tutorials, and getting the wiki up to date.

 

Cheers!

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Great to See InsanelyMac back up, and for those of you starting to point fingers towards hackint0sh, they have no grudge against the actual site, only some of the questionable Administrator instances in the past.

 

 

Exactly. And for the sake of correct and complete information, I believe people should read the threads there called "Account Abuse - fake post on insanelymac" and "Insanelymac.com was hacked".

Especially you, ColdFusion, I hope you read them.

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I'm going to ask the ugly question: I don't suppose this could have anything to do with the nature of this forum?

I definitely can't imagine Apple hiring crackers or whatnot, but why this forum of all out there >_>

 

I honestly doubt Apple would be behind an act such as this. I, for one, am proof that Apple is gaining business because of forums like this. After successfully migrating my Dell D410 to OSX 10.4.8, I was so impressed with Apple that I went out and purchased my Apple Macbook. Shortly there after I went out and purchase my 8-Core Mac Pro. Because of this forum, Apple is at least $6500 richer.

 

-- R

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Not to be a cynic, but I highly doubt that the police are going to track the offenders. Sure, this site sees more traffic than most forums, but if I had a dollar for every time a forum was exploited, I'd be rich. I know that the owners are trying to protect their $50K+ investment, but UK police can't do much about a hacker in Seattle, Hong-Kong, or Sydney.

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Great to See InsanelyMac back up, and for those of you starting to point fingers towards hackint0sh, they have no grudge against the actual site, only some of the questionable Administrator instances in the past.

 

So glad to see we're back online! As I can see from Hacint0sh, the unhappiness will be gone as time goes by. :P

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I'm glad to see this site up and running again! You guys are better than I expected! Thank you for the faster forum, and all in all, keep up the good work!

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This is exactly why I use a BS, one-off email account to register for forums.

 

I'm just not that interested in receiving email from the admins, and certainly not interested in spam. I know people think requiring a valid email address cuts down on spam accounts, but it's just an inconvenience, or worse for people who actually give real addresses only to see them compromised.

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a lot strange that demonoid.com are down too...

The biggest tracker of Mac OS X and cracks was hacked at the same time as InsanelyMac...

 

a lot strange...

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Not to be a cynic, but I highly doubt that the police are going to track the offenders. Sure, this site sees more traffic than most forums, but if I had a dollar for every time a forum was exploited, I'd be rich. I know that the owners are trying to protect their $50K+ investment, but UK police can't do much about a hacker in Seattle, Hong-Kong, or Sydney.

Mmhmm. Im sure nothing will be done, IM will probably just recieve "their deepest sympathy" or "condolences"

a lot strange that demonoid.com are down too...

The biggest tracker of Mac OS X and cracks was hacked at the same time as InsanelyMac...

Interesting...

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a lot strange that demonoid.com are down too...

The biggest tracker of Mac OS X and cracks was hacked at the same time as InsanelyMac...

 

a lot strange...

 

Demonoid is down simply because of hardware problems.

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From demonoid's site:

For the ones wondering, the timing of the downtime was coincidental.

Think that was aimed at us?

 

Anyway, great to be back, the site is a lot faster now (despite the Atlantic's best efforts).

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:P :P .... mmm in the moment i want to post my picture of about this mac... i encounter only a message ....the insanelymac forum has been hacked....i was waiting for the site "rollback", only word to the admin THANKS....

 

because, ur closely contact with the member and put information about the server ...when the forum was closed .....(sorry, my english is bad)...........

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ColdFusion

 

As I already told you (you should know when), I believe this forum was already "owned" by one or more unauthorized persons 2 or 3 days before the forum was deleted.

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Think that was aimed at us?

I think so. Then again, the message on that page is extremely vague. Either they were planning on updating the features soon and the downtime was a coincidence to when they planned to go offline, or the downtime gave them an excuse to make a previously unplanned update. Eh, who knows?

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Glad to see the forums up again. I was starting to fear InsanelyMac would miss the iPhone launch..

 

The site feels MUCH faster now. It used to take a few seconds to load, now its in the miliseconds. (Probably because i'm in Belgium, close to the UK)

 

It's good to see that IMac is in capable hands.

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FYI - The password reset graphic is not showing up since the restore. I went to try it out becuse I posted a week ago that the email was not being sent to my inbox when resetting. My real account is warped1. I suspect the hacker may have been collecting passwords this way. If that is the case it is frustrating that an admin did not look into it when I reported it along with at least one other user.

 

Can an admin PLEASE help me by getting me a password reset on that account?

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During that mess, is there anything that have been lost ?

 

A few posts, and maybe a little bit more (just look at the post above yours). But overall the recovery is nothing short of a miracle!

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Heheh, so the servers are in the UK now?

I see my ping has gone down to a mere 57ms....

 

Let the British OSx86 computing Empire begin! :D

 

Great work on the site though guys, it really is amazing how quickly we were back up. I think I only gnawed through half my desk, so the withdrawal wasn't too bad

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FYI - The password reset graphic is not showing up since the restore. I went to try it out becuse I posted a week ago that the email was not being sent to my inbox when resetting. My real account is warped1. I suspect the hacker may have been collecting passwords this way. If that is the case it is frustrating that an admin did not look into it when I reported it along with at least one other user.

 

Can an admin PLEASE help me by getting me a password reset on that account?

 

I made this so we can gather the problems in one place.. I'll be moving posts of that kind to that thread as they crop up, if you experience anything unusual wioth the site, please post there.

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So just for the record, who made our brand new servers?

Do you really want to know?

 

During that mess, is there anything that have been lost ?

 

The Usenet thread.

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