Please Read - Site Hacked

[Tarsha]

As many of you may have realized the site was hacked sometime in the past few days. DK has been working hard all day to fix the problem and it was fixed sooner than possible. I know you have many questions and we will try and answer them to the best of our abilities. Please read this entire post and all additional posts before asking anything. I do not want to repeat all of this again.

First of all for those of you who have been living on Mars and have no idea what I am talking about a few days ago this forum was hacked by a hacker. He went by the alias TopSat13. When you came to the site you saw a message generated by the hacker. Now we know what was said in his message about all our information being gone and I will get to that later. Larien and I both accessed the site trying to perhaps do something through the admincp this did not work. We contacted DK who then had our web host use an old backup to restore the site.

For those of you that accessed the site during this time I urge you to check your computers. Run virus scans, spyware scans, and look for any programs on your computer you do not recognize. We do not want the hacker to somehow be able to hack your computer because you accessed the site.

As you can see not all of the posts are gone. We used a backup to restore the site to an earlier date. So to the hacker. We will triumph. We are the Energizer Bunny. We keep going and going and going.


Next order of business. We realized that some of you may be missing posts. We had two options for restore dates, Nov. 22 and Nov. 18. After much consideration we chose the 18th. Larien and myself were unsure of when the hacker had accessed the site and done what he did. We want to restore the site before the changes occurred. Now you may think well why didn't you just restore it to the 18th and if that wasn't any good change it to the 22nd? Well that is a good question and I will explain. When DK got down on his hands and knees and begged our web host provider to use their backup to restore the site he was told their was a $150 fee. Now then it took him an hour to get this fee waved, but it was a one time only offer. None of the admins could currently afford to pay the $150 if this didn't work. So we chose the earlier date that we knew the site was unaffected on. We apologize for any lost posts but this was the best option to get the site operational.

Your next question maybe how are we going to keep this from happening again? We are currently updating our vbseo software. DK is also going to add some more security measures. It is probably a good idea for all of you to change your passwords as well. Also we are purging from the database any accounts that are currently not in use. If you have an account you fear maybe in danger of being deleted please let me or Larien know.

As of now I have created a new group on facebook called Fans of DKD. I suggest all of you join. The admins will post things there if the site goes down or something happens. I really need a good picture to put on there. So if someone wants to design something....be my guest.

As for the hacker.....we can only pray he gets what is coming to him. I vote for him dying in a fire, slowly and painfully. But just have his computers explode when he touches them would work too.

Please ask us any questions you might have. We will tolerate them just this once.

[Black Wings]

My first and most important question, is there anyway that the hacker could be one of our own members? I know it seems harsh to ask, but is there any way to find him/her/it so that we can delete this issue? I was heartbroken when I looked on the site and saw that DKD had been hacked. It was the first hacked site that I had ever seen. I'm glad to know that is has been restored. And I'm thanking all of those in the partake in fixing it. I know it took much time and energy to fix it, I checked almost every hours, went to yahoo answers and such to try and help. But only found another one of the members, Kale, showing her concern for DKD as well. I urge the facebook account owner to possibly share emails so that maybe, Hopefully not, this happens again, we can fix the problem earlier.

Thank you all again.

And Nah!!!! To you, stupid hacker, one who will always be hated :P

[Evangeline Carter]

1st off, FANTASTIC job getting back up so quickly. I know I don't post often but I do check the sight at least three times a day lately and this was remarkably distressing. I thought this place was gone for good. Thank you for working so hard to get this online.

My question is this; in the message, the hacker called the admin his 'best enemy'. Is there a possibility this person actually knew one of the admins or do you think it was just a default message?

Also, have any authorities been informed? Hacking should be a huge offense (because it's potentially dangerous).

[Black Wings]

Good question. It was directed towards Dungeon Keeper I thought when I went on here. It gave an email account too: topsat13@live.fr.

[Tarsha]

First of all to answer the first post. At this time there is no indication it was one of our members. I'll explain why I think it is not in a bit.

I too noticed that post on yahoo and larien as well as myself responded to it. The Admins have better than e-mail to keep in touch. Each of us has the phone numbers to the others so that as soon as a situation occurs we can and do contact each other.

The reason it took us so long to notice the issue is all of us have jobs not to mention school. Plus it's getting close to Thanksgiving break. I know Larien was up until the early hours of the morning this morning packing. I've had 3 major projects do. We simply have not been on the site in the past few days. Cain informed me of the issue last night. As soon as I heard about it I informed the other admins. This is the reason I created the DKD user group on facebook. Most people have it. I've allowed everyone the ability to post on the user group's wall. At anytime you can use it to inform the admins of the site going down or to just keep in touch with us. The admins will also use it to make announcements of the site being down and such. I urge everyone to join it. It's just one more way for us to get a hold of you.

Now as to why I do not think it's a user. If you do a search for Hacked by TopSat13 you will notice several sites coming up in your search engine that have been hacked by the same hacker. While I like to think I have someone out there who hates me enough to do this.....I doubt this person hates all those other people as well. I also prefer to give our users the benefit of the doubt concerning such situations. For not only does it hurt us but them as well. So at this time there is no indication this was caused by a DKD user. However that does not mean we will not look into the situation as best as we can. Just remember that there is a reason most hackers never get caught. It is extremely difficult to catch hackers of this nature. As to if any authorities have been informed, I have not done so. I can not speak for DK.

Thank you for the questions.

[*Larien*]

Ok, I know that I have not been able to keep in touch with everyone, the reasoing being is I am home and I do nto have internet. So here goes my two cents...

I back Tarsha in the belief that it was not one of our users. To me it seemed more like a default message the hacker leaves on sites that he hacks. Furthermore, in the basis of authorities, neither Tarsha or I have done so...If you think about it, sites get hacked everyday, thousands of them, and whereas hacking is against the law its not something that can be prevented. The only this us as owners can do is try to keep up with protective updates and purging of suspicious accounts.

DK will be teaching me how to backup the database myself so we will not have to fear paying $150 the next time this happens. I say this because I have been on this site since 2004, and I am certain we will be hacked again at some point. It is part of life when it comes to owning a site.

Thank you all for being concerned. I urge you to join the FB group so that we can get ahold of you because that was one of our bigger concerns this time was our inability to reach you all.

We will continue to keep you all updated as new developments arise. There are going to be possible changes to the forums at a later date. So everyone stay on, keep posting, and HACKERS YOU SHALL BURN!

[Death Cobra]

I had created a site on Myspace, way back when I was more active online. The link is :
DKD RPer's | MySpace Groups

I confess I havent paid much attention to it either, but its there.

Great job with the site. I hope the hacker is a North Korean...Im ready to go North.

[Apollo]

Thank you for bringing the site back because this is a big part of my life and my passion. I swear a little of me died inside thinking all of not only mine but every one's work was destroyed. (KIll the infidel Topsat13!!) no questions but thank you for getting it back up and if it goes down again I will personally chip in money to bring it back!

DKD=My Life!

[Kale Allerion]

I know it took much time and energy to fix it, I checked almost every hours, went to yahoo answers and such to try and help. But only found another one of the members, Kale, showing her concern for DKD as well.

lol, that was funny.

Thanks *so* much to everyone involved in reviving the site! I seriously had lost hope.

I second Evangeline's feeling about legal action, but I understand why it'd be difficult to do so. Grrr...I really, really, really, really, really wanna sue somebody, but oh, well.

[Jal-Koon]

Y'know... I've never had a Facebook or MySpace account before. Maybe it's time I made one eh?