Ezboard systems touted as the "largest online community network site on the planet", was virtually brought to its knees Tuesday as the result of "a very precise and malicious internet attack resulting in the loss of a significant amount of current and historical board postings and interrupted services across all systems", according to Ezboards' CEO, Robert Labatt's message to Ezboard members.
Tuesday's attack caused denial of service errors throughout the system and affected millions of users across approximately 9,000 message boards. The attack resulted in massive data loss, both current and historical from message boards within the system. Many Boards also lost accumulated monetary funds stored within their communities that is used toward Board subscription services.
Labatt is ensuring Ezboards members that their personal information including credit card info remains safe and was not touched during the attack.
Most message boards were accessible within several hours of the initial attack yesterday and Board owners are currently assessing the amount of data loss in their communities. Ezboards is warning their members that although they will do their best in restoring lost data, complete data restoration may not be possible. Repairs will be underway for the next week to 10 days.
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http://www.halifaxlive.com/artman/publish/ezboard_010605_7762.shtmlNOW Do You Feel Secure on the Internet?
by Mark Faulk
Two weeks ago, The Faulking Truth subscribed to a message board, www.ezboard.com with the promise of better and more features, more posting capabilities, and a bunch of stuff our little website couldn't offer. There have been some problems with the message board from the start, slow loading, etc., and it went down for a day last week, but overall, it seemed like a good move.
Then, yesterday, the entire EZBoard system was attacked by hackers, who have systematically deleted every post on our board (and hundreds of others as well, apparently), beginning with the two forums that deal with the Stockgate scandal. Although they knew about the hackers yesterday morning, the system corruption is ongoing, and the rest of our forums disappeared sometime during the night. Is it a coincidence that the first of our forums to "disappear" were the ones dealing with the most volatile issue that we cover, the ongoing stock market scandal? I have no idea, but I have forwarded that information to the legal department at the EZBoard company. I'll let everyone know what they find out.
Here's my question for everyone: If hackers can so easily subvert an entire system as large as EZBoard, the self-described "largest online community network site on the planet",with over 9,000 forums, and apparently delete an entire system with the click of a mouse, what does that tell us about how secure all of our internet systems are? If it's this easy to hack into their system and corrupt the entire program, how secure do you feel about the millions of websites that ask for your credit card numbers every day? Do you still believe that our electronic voting system is foolproof? Do you think that the trading of billions and billions of stock market shares over the internet every day is a secure, fair system? How about your bank account and other sensitive personal information that is stored on the internet? Do YOU feel secure on the internet?
As for EZBoard, they've "assured" customers that no personal or credit card information was illegally accessed or stolen, but then, many of their message boards have had their accounts where their subscribers donate money hacked into and deleted. As for me, I'll be taking an extra long look at my credit card bills over the next few months, and I'd suggest that everyone else do the same.....just in case.
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http://www.faulkingtruth.com/Articles/BlogFest/1041.htmlUpdate: 6/1/05 19:11
Dear ezboard Family,
By now you I am sure that you are quite aware that ezboard's systems were severely attacked early on Tuesday morning. Since that time, we have been focused on getting boards running properly and restoring data. We have restored a significant number of boards and we are continuing to restore boards and system functionality as quickly as possible. I want to bring you up to speed on what we know, what we are doing and what happens next:
Here is what we know:
1/ The attacker erased all historical post data on all boards and a significant amount of back-up data - the reason we have been able to restore some boards at this time is that we have back up data from the May 9th incremental back-up (we perform back-ups every day, but the attacker deleted many of them). As a result, some board data will be restored, with entries between May 9th and the attack missing. We *may* be able to restore this more recent data from data that we can retrieve from RAM on the servers. The probability of this being successful is not known right now.
2/ Personal and credit card information was not compromised - ezboard does not have CC information on file,
3/ User data, ezSupporter and board configuration data was not compromised,
4/ We have restored data to many boards at this point,
5/ We have additional back-up data for approximately 8,000 boards and will be able to restore over half of all Gold Boards,
6/ We have information on the attacker and are building a case,
7/ New security measures have been put into place to reduce the potential for future attacks,
8/ Your Community Chest and board expiry data was in separate systems and will be restored soon,
9/ Trial boards that were moved off of p097 before the attack will likely be OK. Boards that were created on p097 may not be available.
What we are doing:
1/ Repairing systems to allow posting on all boards,
2/ Restoring data where possible,
3/ Actions have been taken to close the method the attacker used to gain access to the systems.
Next Steps:
We want to be sure that your concerns are addressed as directly as possible. In addition to the above information, we ask you to read the Important Announcements and New Server Status forums frequently for updates. Please read these announcements prior to posting your questions in a forum. Because of the scope of the communities were affected by this attack, it will not be possible to give individualized responses to every user, every poster, or every help ticket. Keep in mind that we do read your questions and will certainly combine frequent questions and themes into broadcast messages like this one.
I would like to thank the ezboard operations staff who have been on the job since Tuesday at 5AM and continue to work hard restoring boards and modifying systems to reduce the threat of future attacks. While you may not be aware of their commitment, please believe me that they are working non-stop for you.
In addition to the hard work that these folks are doing, other members of our team are working hard on the next version of your community experience. An experience that will be vastly improved using the knowledge gained from the last five years of ezboard community and the exciting new developments in online interaction happening now.
Thank you for your patience. We will be keeping you updated every until this is resolved. At this point you should expect to see an update at Noon Pacific time each day.
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CIA Overseeing Three-Day War Game to Mimic Response to Crippling Internet Attack
By Ted Bridis The Associated Press
Published: May 25, 2005
WASHINGTON - The CIA is conducting a war game this week to simulate an unprecedented, Sept. 11-like electronic assault against the United States.
The three-day exercise, known as "Silent Horizon," is meant to test the ability of government and industry to respond to escalating Internet disruptions over many months, according to participants. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the CIA asked them not to disclose details of the sensitive exercise taking place in Charlottesville, Va., about two hours southwest of Washington.
The simulated attacks were carried out five years in the future by a fictional new alliance of anti-American organizations that included anti-globalization hackers. The most serious damage was expected to be inflicted in the closing hours of the war game Thursday.
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http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBN0XW469E.html
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