I’ve Been Hacked!

Published on Sunday, December 13, 2009 by Katherine

hacked website Last night I discovered one of my websites was hacked. And I am MAD. MAD MAD MAD. I don’t know how it happened or when, but right in the middle of my sidebar were three HIDDEN links to other websites. And they were Topic Related websites.

When I discovered this, I had two Cosmopolitans under my belt and it was about 2 in the morning. After removing the hidden links and changing my server password, I went to one of the sites and sent a furious, alcohol induced email.

And I’m sure they are absolutely shaking in their boots now. <not> But it made me feel better. Well… a little better.

For me, this was worse than receiving blogging spam. Technically, someone snuck into my house while I was sleeping and wrote all over my walls. But they did it with invisible ink, so now I have to worry about the fact that I just might have missed a wall somewhere. And that The Mighty Google will see this wall and ban me for having a spammy site. I wasn’t just burglarized, I was RAPED.

Even worse? The site is a fertility site that looks completely white hat to the common internet user. Little do these potential parents know that the site they are looking at is run by slimy and disgusting people who have no morals whatsoever. And THESE people are going to help them conceive? Unbelievable.

It just goes to show that you can’t trust ANYBODY. What a wonderful Christmas-like spirit this has put me in. <sigh>

Have you ever been hacked, burglarized or had something stolen from you?

Jen

My first website was hacked and I felt the same way, though my hacker just took down a page or two (this was back in ’95) I have been lucky since then, or probably just haven’t noticed. I have been burglarized before and the feeling is horrible. I was at a friends house back in the 80s, a teen. In the middle of the night two guys broke in the house, using a crowbar to force open the locked door. I had left my purse on the kitchen table and they took it. Check book and credit cards, license, good make up. A pain in the ass to replace everything. Luckily my friend’s mom was in the process of redecorating and had left a rolled up rug on the floor in front of the door which they did not see and tripped over. This woke up the dog and barking commenced. In their rush to exit the house they fell on the crowbar and cut themselves. My purse was the only thing taken. I remember feeling violated. I didn’t care about the purse but my sense of safety was gone. You should have a few more cosmos and find their site and hack it right back, let them know how it feels. I know that isn’t the right way to handle it but it sure would feel good.
tv series tube

Bad to hear that m8 , im in webmastering like 5 years and i havent ever been hacked , I dont think that they got your server password still , maybe just the admin login 🙂 if i were a hacker and had your server password , i would take all the webstite not just implant 2 links
Paulineh

So how did you notice you had been hacked if the code was invisible. Where did it show up?

Hacking seems to me a really dispicable act but there are so many out there not worried about stealing or cheating (:
Katherine

Paulineh – It could have been in there for weeks, actually. I noticed an extra blank line above an ad… I thought it was just a page break so I looked at the code and found three links with key words – one in German, one in Spanish and one in English. They hid the text with (I put spaces in it so web crawlers would not see the text and think I was black hat.) They are completely ON TOPIC to what the website is about. I looked at backlinks to the English site and found that almost every site that had links to them also had a particular ad network that I have.. so I think I am def taking that down. Too bad b/c I was making money with them. I didn’t see the code when I put it in, so it might not be them… I have emailed the owner of the ad company to let him know and see what he says. I have definately changed my server password and I have my hosting company checking in to it.

Jen – WOW! What a STORY!!!!!! That STINKS!!!!! I am GLAD they cut themselves.. hopefully it was in a part that REALLY hurt. Gosh, DNA… hmmm…. did they ever take a sample? I am sure you felt so afraid after, and MAD that you had to feel that way!!!! Did anyone ever try to use your credit card?