Hackers and our forum
In going through some of my messages regarding the recent code refresh on this website you may have seen me mention a word or two about hackers. In the back corner of your mind you're probably thinking that I am losing it. I mean who would care about hacking into a motorcycle website, right?
The short answer is, a lot more than you might think. This is something I have been dealing with since the website's early days and it's only getting worse. And with the prevalence of AI, I am expecting a huge increase in hack attempts, from what I am seeing now.
To give you an idea of what I'm dealing with, in the last 8 days, these are the number of hack attempts that have been stopped. I have also included the countries that are attempting it.
Total 625
For 8 days, this is a crazy amount of hack attempts, for a relatively small server. And our website is far from being a mainstream website. But we get about 80 new attacks a day. And most of those attempts originate from Communist countries as you can see here. Surprise, surprise...
I'm sure you're asking, why do they want to hack our server? Is it to steal our data? While I'm sure they would love to scour the pages for email addresses for spamming purposes. But no, I think it's a bit more sinister than that. Hackers love to break into other servers in order to install remote control software on them. Once this is done, then the compromised server can used to distribute spam, viruses, launch denial-of-service attacks on other PC's and servers, ransomware attacks, porn and the list goes on.
The hackers are always trying to find a way to break into someone else's server. That way if it gets found out, it's not their server so they are safe. Needless to say, I'm trying everything I can to keep them away from our server. So far, I've been pretty successful. But it is a constant cat and mouse game and I don't see it slowing down anytime soon. Hopefully this gives you all a little background into what is going on behind the scenes.
The short answer is, a lot more than you might think. This is something I have been dealing with since the website's early days and it's only getting worse. And with the prevalence of AI, I am expecting a huge increase in hack attempts, from what I am seeing now.
To give you an idea of what I'm dealing with, in the last 8 days, these are the number of hack attempts that have been stopped. I have also included the countries that are attempting it.
- China 320
- Vietnam 236
- Russia 60
- Germany 2
- Netherlands 2
- United States 2
- Finland 2
- France 1
Total 625
For 8 days, this is a crazy amount of hack attempts, for a relatively small server. And our website is far from being a mainstream website. But we get about 80 new attacks a day. And most of those attempts originate from Communist countries as you can see here. Surprise, surprise...
I'm sure you're asking, why do they want to hack our server? Is it to steal our data? While I'm sure they would love to scour the pages for email addresses for spamming purposes. But no, I think it's a bit more sinister than that. Hackers love to break into other servers in order to install remote control software on them. Once this is done, then the compromised server can used to distribute spam, viruses, launch denial-of-service attacks on other PC's and servers, ransomware attacks, porn and the list goes on.
The hackers are always trying to find a way to break into someone else's server. That way if it gets found out, it's not their server so they are safe. Needless to say, I'm trying everything I can to keep them away from our server. So far, I've been pretty successful. But it is a constant cat and mouse game and I don't see it slowing down anytime soon. Hopefully this gives you all a little background into what is going on behind the scenes.
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