Live again...

Three cheers for the webmasters!!!!!!!!

Second that!!!!

Hip, Hip

Hoo Rah!!!

long lost friend?

Can a web page be a long lost friend? Anyway, glad it is back up.

No photos yet?

i tried to post photos and they did not upload successfully. Thanks for all the hard work, it's good to have the site back.

Dave Wermuth said:

i tried to post photos and they did not upload successfully.

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Yes, the images in the forums are still not connected and the person who is working on that has been informed. Roger Kugler has done most of the heavy lifting on this web site rebuild. The forums image problem may not get fixed until next week. Sorry,

Benson

It does feel like re-locating an old friend. Or several, in fact...

Hi everybody--- missed you!

yeaaaaaaaa! The forums are BAAAACK! Thanks for all the hard work! and may the evildoers suffer a toe fungus!

Dance the Tango

The security tango that is. Everyone should practice safe PC. Sadly, most folks do not follow even the most basic steps.

http://securitytango.com/

This site offers several free (if you are careful to select the correct option) tools that can help you to keep your PC free of Malware, Spyware andVirus attacks.
I recommend and run Avast, Super AntiSpyware and Malwarebytes on all of my computers. Knock on wood, I travel a great deal and connect to unsafe network all the time and have been able to keep my PC running.

It's nice that the site is back, but what happened? What kind of security is run on this site? Why did it fail, again... and for the missing days, what is the backup schema for this site? I'm curious more than anything but also concerned that we are still seemingly vulnerable.

Do the Tango....

MGC said:

It's nice that the site is back, but what happened? What kind of security is run on this site? Why did it fail, again... and for the missing days, what is the backup schema for this site? I'm curious more than anything but also concerned that we are still seemingly vulnerable.

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This site is run on a WestHost server so see http://www.westhost.com/ for more information about their security. It is not clear at this time exactly how the hackers got in so this may happen again. We have set up an automatic process to back up the WCHA forum database every weekend. I transfer that backup and a copy of the entire web site to my laptop a few days later.

The first indication of a problem showed up late in the morning of Thursday, March 10th when the WCHA logo in the forums was replaced with one from a Mexican web portal. This logo changed a few more times and warnings started about cookies from hereafter777.com when accessing the forums. We tried changing passwords and a few other solutions which seemed to have addressed the problems. It got worse late Friday and Dan Miller noticed early on Saturday morning that there was a brief redirect which was downloading an empty file called out.php. This had the potential to be a serious security breach so we shut down the store and forums. The entire site was soon suffering from an "iframe injection" and other script problems by Sunday the 13th so everything was shut down shortly thereafter. A new server was set up on Monday the 14th and Roger started the rebuild using my backups from March 6th and 7th. We have planned to upgrade to the new versions of the forum and store software for some time so the store was upgraded last week and the forum upgrade will be completed next week. The store’s new security certificate has not been issued yet so all web browsers will complain bitterly when you access it now. This should also be corrected next week. I would encourage everyone to practice safe computing and regularly scan their computers for infections. Thanks for your patience and understanding,

Benson

Benson Gray said:

This site is run on a WestHost server so see http://www.westhost.com/ for more information about their security.

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Interesting link. They offer "cloud hosting". I presume that they offer a backup service as well. That might be worth looking into as a more real time alternative.
Anyway, it's great to have this site back. This is the "social network" for wooden canoe freaks, a real special and unique community.
My friends think I'm nuts when I try to explain my affliction. Here I am just one of the many.

I know the effort it takes to rebuild a site and servers.... Thanks to that effort and the results. It's nice that the site is back and it's appreciated that the recovery this time is infinitely better than last time.

Thanks to all who have worked hard to bring the forum back on line. It is appreciated.

Seconded. It's amazing the disruption in your routine when a site you visit essentially daily goes down. The herculean effort to restore it does not go unnoticed (nor unappreciated).

In the words of a famous intellectual, "Woot."

I would like to thank all involved too. No one understands the canoe addiction better than us, and this is our link to each other. The tremendous effort to keep this organization up is realy appreaciated.

Thanks!!!!!!

I knew this site was becoming addictive!! I'm glad to have you all back and to contribute a little to the conversation.
I've learned a lot and had some great laughs in the past year that I've been a member.

Thanks indeed to those who put the energy, effort, and time into bringing the forums back.
Greg

Even tho I'm mostly a lurker, this site has become a big part of my daily routine. Thank everyone involved in keeping it going and the ever interesting input. Michael

Thanks for all the effort, time and energy in bringing this puppy back up!~

Three cheers for Roger & Company for rescuing the site!!