Also: USERNAMES ARE NOW BACK TO NORMAL. CEASE AND DESIST IN USING THE [warn] CODE! We will be reverting it to normal after a few days for all the chaos and joke warns to sink down the forums.
Original post is as follows:
Apparently the NS site has come under attack, beginning sometime around midnight Eastern time. Which is April 1, guys....
We have received numerous reports of players signing in to bad login attempts, altered national fields and notices about spam messages. We are aware of the problem, we don't need a bajillion threads in Moderation about it or a bajillion Getting Help reports. We already know what's happening, and that it appears to have affected everybody.
The mods and admins are working on sorting things out; we haven't figured out how the hacker(s?) have gained access to the system, though a likely theory at this time is some sort of SQL injection to mass-change entries in the game database.
REMEMBER however, that even if the online copy of the game's info has been tampered with, we do have backups and will restore from one of those if we can't get things fixed in a day or so. So please bear with us; the techies reported to me that they think they closed off how the guy got in. If they're wrong however, there could more ongoing weirdness with the site.
Despite the changed mottos and spam RMB posts, so far it doesn't appear that there has been any real damage done. It is highly recommended that if you had a weak password prior to this however, that you consider changing it to something more difficult to crack. Remember guys, a good password is:
- Over 8 characters long
- A mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and punctuation
- Not an actual word in any language
We will keep you updated as soon as we have more information.
UPDATE 1:40pm PACIFIC: Techies report, and I quote, "OMFG EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE!", but they remain optimistic about nailing this thing down.
UPDATE 2:30pm PACIFIC: Seem to be having issues with player/mod/senior mod usergroups. Techies report, and I quote, "FIRE EVERYWHERE WHY ISN'T THE HALON WORKING?!" but there is frantic activity in the server room; they're working hard to restore everything to normal.
UPDATE 3:37pm PACIFIC: Oddly quiet in the server room. I think the techies have got the problem figured out and decided to celebrate with a BBQ. It certainly smells like they're cooking something over there!
UPDATE 4:45pm PACIFIC: Starting to get a handle on the forum colors again!
UPDATE 5:30pm PACIFIC: Thank $deity, things are back to normal!!!!!!
(Image)
~Evil Forum Empress Rep Prod the Ninja Mod
~She who wields the Banhammer; master of the mighty moderation no-dachi Kiritateru Teikoku
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