Host attacked

[brian]

The host comparative-religion.com is hosted with has been under attack the past 12 hours or so. Although this site has apparently been running smoothly, not only is their main site down, but I cannot access the admin area to backup the forum database.

There's a possible danger of major hacking operations - a supposed advertised hacking competion apparently runs for 6 hours today, so a back up is essential. Especially as the lask backup I made is dated from July 1st.

So I've gone through all of the threads since then and saved every single post and new member info - takes up 20 pages at 12pt font - but it means in the event of an attack that causes damage to the forum database, I should be able to recover everything.

Took a while, but everything is now secure, just on the possibility of something untoward happening.

The moment the host is back online I'll make a proper database dump through phpmyadmin.

[brian]

Host is back online and I've just been in the site admin area and made a backup of the forum. Everything doubly backed up now.

Quite possibly the feared hacking contest is a hoax or not entertained by the general hacking community - but better to be prepared.

It's also important to have constant backups - having once watched my first forum - a YaBB CGI - disintegrate due to a server error, and having seen the chronicles site hacked twice this year, it's worth taking simplest precautions with regular backups - especially before a possible storm.

Let's hope it stays within a teacup. ;D