Tweaknews hacked!

[TN] Nathan · ALMIGHTY PWNER! Joined: 14 Feb 2002 Posts: 7406

As you probably very well know now, we had someone gain access to an old admin account and have a little fun on Tweaknews.

This was due to a vital flaw in PHPBB that was unnoticed to today.

Forum has again been upgraded and all holes have been patched up and hopefully this moron can leave us alone so we can help people.
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JayDubya · Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2004 5:58 pm Post subject:

Wow, he must be some awesome hacker to find a flaw in script.

Its good to hear that all is fixed now. Back to helping others

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[TN] Nathan · ALMIGHTY PWNER! Joined: 14 Feb 2002 Posts: 7406

There are two situtations.

1.) He hacked into the computer of a formaer admin and gained access through that.
2.) Took advantage of a small flaw in the recent upgrade we did to Tweaknews.

Either way, they are both gone.
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Silicon Skum · Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2004 6:02 pm Post subject:

My guess is that he used an OLD pearl script to hack the BB, Something similar existed (exists ?) in UBB.

Prize LAMER if ever I saw one!.

Nate, you got his IP?

§
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[TN] Nathan · ALMIGHTY PWNER! Joined: 14 Feb 2002 Posts: 7406

Yip, if it is even his IP
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Silicon Skum · Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2004 6:22 pm Post subject:

smith.p.sean · Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2004 7:45 pm Post subject:

i hope the idiot was stupid enough to leave a trail that we can follow. The first thing i see when i get home from school is tn missing tons of posts and nathans name in green and aveno in yellow and i wasnt shure what had happened then i open my mail and get the mail and i started freakin out.... by the way... hey guys how ya been, but more on that in chit chat.

Hoedizzy · Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2004 8:06 pm Post subject:

I hope he used his home ip. Then we could get that little pile.

Yoshida · UberTweaker Joined: 24 Dec 2003 Posts: 1219

glad to see everything is fixed, you really never think about security until you get hacked, my site got a hacked a few months ago, they didnt damage anything just replaced my index page.

[TN] Nathan · ALMIGHTY PWNER! Joined: 14 Feb 2002 Posts: 7406

Turns out this guy wanted to point out a flaw in our site also.

He wanted to contact the guy I had working on the fix.

He also was a lot better than we initially though, and had more access then we believed.
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BW · Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2004 9:14 pm Post subject:

Thanks for fixing it so promptly Nate.....keep it up!

Stupid kids...
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null_set · TweakNOOB Joined: 22 Sep 2004 Posts: 151 Location: Jersey

What sort of access? And what do you mean, was trying to point out a flaw? As in honest grey-hat "I'm bored, I found a hole, you guys should fix this?"
Or as in he caused damage, and happened to leave a note showing how he got in?
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[TN] Nathan · ALMIGHTY PWNER! Joined: 14 Feb 2002 Posts: 7406

Kinda a mix of all.

He caused damage and wanted to point out the flaw.
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Jason · TweakNOOB Joined: 05 Nov 2003 Posts: 38 Location: NJ

Glad you got control back quickly!! Now buy some new locks for the doors!!

[TN] Nathan · ALMIGHTY PWNER! Joined: 14 Feb 2002 Posts: 7406

I know, this took me for a loop.
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smith.p.sean · Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2004 10:44 pm Post subject:

so... did we lose that section or will it be able to be replaced?

[TN] Nathan · ALMIGHTY PWNER! Joined: 14 Feb 2002 Posts: 7406

We lost three sections:

Announcements
Tweaknews Website General Talk
General Technical Discussion
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Jason · TweakNOOB Joined: 05 Nov 2003 Posts: 38 Location: NJ

No backups of the db?

2.0.11 from 2.0.10 didn't involve any db changes, so it should work fine... if you have a recent backup.

[TN] Nathan · ALMIGHTY PWNER! Joined: 14 Feb 2002 Posts: 7406

Yea, we do, but it will take some time to extract just the missing sections.

If I reinstate the backup I will lose all the posts created after it .
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Ham_fisT · Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2004 11:06 pm Post subject:

I'm sure we can all be patient while you get this sorted

(as long as it's done by Morning)

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Yeah....... ok

smith.p.sean · Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2004 11:34 pm Post subject:

ok thank goodness. Im going to download the entire tweaknews to my computer too just in case so i can have my own backup incase something like this ever happens again knock on wood.

2old2care · Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2004 11:39 pm Post subject:

Wow....I have a day with the g/f...get HL2...and you guys go get hacked while I'm not here. WTF's up with that....
Well looking at the bright side...I guess the emails from the snotwad woke a few ppl up, that haven't been here for a while.
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Xal · Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 2:50 am Post subject:

I'm just glad its fixed, If TN went down my life would lose all meaning

Thanks for the prompt repairs Nate

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[TN] Nathan · ALMIGHTY PWNER! Joined: 14 Feb 2002 Posts: 7406

No problem.

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Xal · Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 3:41 am Post subject:

Hey Nate, that email came from "nobody@www.ipkonfig.com" I suspect that our hacker buddy is a member there but you probably already knew that. I would guess that its a toss away account anyways.
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