Recent Attack

[Kyle123]

RE the recent attack, was any data exposed? Should people be changing their passwords?

 

[HackSlash]

How do you know the "maintenance" was due to an attack? I don't see a note here in the forums. Do you have a link?

 

[Kyle123]

There was a banner saying as much, however it has since disappeared

 

[HackSlash]

Gotcha, it is back "Following an attack on the forum yesterday, we had to restore the database from the latest safe backup. Unfortunately that involved losing all posts and new user registrations from the last 36 hours. We apologize for the inconvenience caused to our members, but it was the safest course of action that we could take."

 

[Joe4]

It is doubtful they had access to passwords, as they are not stored in a readable format (if anyone asks for their password, we can only reset them, as we cannot see what they currently are).

But it is never a bad idea to change your passwords from time-to-time.

 

[HackSlash]

"doubtful" ? Are you guys performing a forensic analysis of the attack to see what happened?

There are many ways to break encryption depending on what they got in to. If they have your user database they can brute force it against a rainbow table and show all the users with simple passwords, like has been done in other major breaches.

 

[Joe4]

Thanks for your concerns. The Admins (and I am not one of them) are handling this.
If you have any concerns, then by all means change your password.

 

[Kyle123]

vBulletin hasn't exactly got a glowing reputation for security (especially when it's not up to date) when it comes to storing passwords - have a look here: https://www.troyhunt.com/data-breaches-vbulletin-and-weak/

Even if hackers may have had access to the user table then the responsible thing to do would be to email users and advise them to change their password. The problem is that users tend to use the same password all over the web and should a hacker have access to both the username and password, they have access to wherever the user has used it.

Assuming that the hacker can reasonably get 20% of the passwords, that's nearly 70,000 users of this community with potentially access to emails compromised.

There's no stigma attached to advising users to change passwords, it happens all the time even to the big boys like adobe.

 

[Krayons]

RE the recent attack, was any data exposed? Should people be changing their passwords?

To anyone reading this thread, considering the lack of information provided regarding the attack, I highly recommend and urge you to please change your password. If the password you use on MrExcel.com is used anywhere else, especially your email or any financial institutions, be sure to change those immediately.

Most of the time, hackers don't attack websites for the "lulz". They are almost always after information; usually email addresses (so as to sell them) and passwords.

I also cannot stress enough the importance of using strong passwords. LastPass is an amazing tool. With it, every single one of my accounts all use a unique 20 character password. (EG: &8y*^Ex4Zvk$&S!7A9nV) The odds of it being brute forced, are so astronomically small, that I have absolutely zero concerns as a result.

Good luck.

Edit:

In lieu of this, I also cannot stress enough, how bad it is to actively display to the world, that MrExcel.com is using outdated vBulletin software. I also highly recommend that the admins remove the version number from appearing at the bottom of this website.

 

[Kyle123]

I'd just like to draw attention to this once again. All the usernames, passwords and email addresses from this attack have now turned up online. If you haven't changed your password yet, I urge you to do so (especially if it's used anywhere else)