great to see site back on!

I hope the site stays on and that hacker does not get back in!

I couldn't agree more Duke.

I haven't made a formal announcement that the site is back yet. You'll also notice that some of the site's features like the SCH Garage aren't available. This is just temporary; a formal announcement will come along with a return of the site's features.

Glad you were able to keep old posts.

The vBulletin software is surprisingly robust; all the old posts/photo albums/garage/etc... prior to the hacker's initial (and repeated) visits are all still present and intact. They are just turned 'off' at the moment. The good folks at vBulletin suggest doing so in order to determine the point of entry of any malicious intruders. But they'll be turned back 'on' and made available to SCH members once we're certain they don't pose any security issues.

i guess the hacker just doesn't have anything better to do:obscene:

It's an ego trip if nothing else. Proving they can hack a website - even one as small and as low-key as SCH - is a means to bragging rights within the hacking community. The disruption and annoyance brought to the site's members/visitors (not to mention the day-to-day work of admins/moderators to keep the site up and running) through their malicious actions are meaningless, and probably the butt of many a joke within their little sub-culture.

Of course, I'm assuming it's "a person". For all I (or anyone else) knows, it could have been another computer that hacked our site. Computer hacking has become incredibly sophisticated in the last while; hacks are being written targeting servers which then infect other servers and eventually move on to hacking individual websites. Why? Information gathering, electronic money laundering, etc... it's not the old-school mob scene we're used to seeing in Hollywood movies. Criminals have become more tech-savvy than some of the biggest names in the IT game; the rise in personal identify theft in the last while is a very clear indicator of this IMHO.

I just hope whomever it was that hacked SCH - be it an individual with way too much time on their hands or a computer program mindlessly searching for websites with security vulnerabilities - leaves us alone and finds another target. I'm confident we've addressed the security vulnerabilities since the last attack, but you never know... these guys are smart.

Regardless, if they get in and deface the site again, SCH WILL be back up and running.