Yet another example of the problem with installed software for organizations that don’t have the resources to manage it:

Hi all,

I have no way of informing you through the main site, so I thought I’d start the news here: Bookninja was hacked last week in a strange act of senseless vandalism.

Someone somehow got in to the site, created a new admin account and disabled all our anti-spam software, which allowed the site to be flooded with porn and casino spam.

I happened to log on while this was happening, and managed to lock the hacker out (I think) by deleting the account and changing passwords. But in the meantime, the intruder for some reason also erased the entire Magazine, Comics and About pages, as well as several other key files.

At this point, you can still read and comment on existing posts, but I can’t seem to post anything new, and several things have changed at the back end that have made it difficult for me to administrate the site.

The whole experience was bewildering and senseless, and felt kind of like having your house robbed while sitting in the living room.

So that said, I am looking for help. If any of you are, or know, a power user for php or WordPress and can help me get things sorted out, please email me here or at the editors@bookninja.com address.

Please bear with me until I get it all sorted out.

Yours,

George Murray

Editor, Bookninja.com