• Registered: 2006-10-15
  • Posts: 111

Topic: lost my data

Hi

One of my clients has lost all the data, comments, and user inforantion in the txt files. the files were just wiped clean

Do you think this is a hack attack or is there a file limitation as the news sections was getting vet large

Thanks

Nick

  • Registered: 2005-08-16
  • Posts: 1,861

Re: lost my data

If the only thing that has happened is the files are now empty then I don't think it is a hacker. They would have nothing to gain from this. The majority of hackers want to put their own posts on a site e.g. Adverts. If they somehow gained access to your server they would do more than empty the data files.
I have not come across any reason why the script would empty the settings, comments and news through error. The most likely cause would be that your client has accidentaly uploaded a blank set of data files instead of downloading them as a backup. I have done this once before myself using dream weaver I accidentally clicked the upload arrow instead of the download. Luckily I had an earlier backup and only lost a few posts.

  • Registered: 2005-08-28
  • Posts: 16,512

Re: lost my data

If it where just the news that was gone, i'dd say no.
It's known that large news files can be 'reset' by the host cause the filesize has become larger then the permitted filesize on the server.
The users also being gone...

Maybe it is a hacker.
Eventhough the new owners made 1.4.7 it still has some vulnarabilites that 1.4.6 allready had.
Also a vulnarability in the site itself could be possibility. It's more common than you think. Many people writetheir own navigation script. Often something like: index.php?page=home
the 'page' value is never validated or sanitized where a 'hacker' could change that to
index.php?page=/cutenews/data/users.db.php to download that file. then they'dd have your md5 encrypted passwords which nowadays can easily be decrypted by looking through rainbow tables. Then a hacker just needs to login and delete all.
Or the file upload hack is just as dangerous.