The Database errors and and hack attack

Just to explain what happened yesterday - according to our terrific and excellent technical advisor Rich

So thanks to Rich, the forum was protected before any harm was done.

During this event Nathan was inundated with around 1100 emails in a matter of hours but didn't have time to deal with it then. So for safety's sake, he and I decided it would be best to close the forum before there was any damage. I think the message I put out on that was fairly explanatory and we hope you were able to understand that.

That you so much for your patience and for not inundating us with pms and emails about it. That made the event much easier to handle.

 

you guys are fab

 

And just to be on the safe side our glorious webmaster has created a Twitter page.

https://twitter.com/#!/GC_Forum

So that we can find out whats going on if anything else happens.

Also, there is the emergency default to Zigs facebook page, but that is only for total shutdown emergencies as I only really use that to keep an eye on my kids

 

Thanks for sorting all that out and a big thumbs up for the message posted when the forum was down so much better than 404!

 

Well, the 404 comes when the site crashes!
The nice message come when the forum is turned off by switching off the lights in the office!

 

Aesculus was left on his own in the office when you switched the lights off.

Took ages to calm him down.

 

Well done - and thank you so much to all of you who were involved.

 

Luckily this time the person or persons unknown were foiled but next time we might not be so lucky!

so it's worth following a couple of golden rules regarding password safety.

NEVER EVER use the same password for a website/forum as for your email account especially if that email account is the one you signed up to the website with!!!

Use different passwords for different websites

Always try to make your passwords difficult to guess try and use a mixture of upper and lower-case letters, numbers and if possible symbols! (*&^%$£"!)

Never keep passwords to websites in your email accounts!

if you like a lot of people and find it difficult to remember passwords then use a local password safe such as KeePass Password Safe which will keep all your passwords safe and encrypted with one master password, write it down on a bit of paper and stick it to the back of the keyboard if you have too! You're only hiding it from online criminals If you trust the people you live with then there's no harm:WINK1:

Anything I've missed guys?

 

Might it not help if firefox users get the add on better privacy
Zombie Cookie Description

 

Thanks to everyone for all your hard work. It is much appreciated. Also for keeping us updated and making sure these creeps didn't get too far. You guys are ACE!!

 

Thanks to everyone in the hot seats. You've done a great job keeping GC 'fit and healthy' for us all.