LSB home page hacked

**Mike** · #1 March 2nd, 2008, 03:36 PM

LSB's home page has periodically been defaced since yesterday. Since there are a few comments about this externally, here's the concise version:

No Customer information has been accessed or compromised

The simple reason being, there was/is no customer information on the LSB site server. Absolutely none. In our 10 years doing business, there never has been.

Buying books from LSB is still as secure as always

Whether you buy via credit card or PayPal, none of your financial information is processed at or by LSB. It is processed by our bank's servers, or by PayPal.

No private Author information has been accessed or compromised

Again, we don't hold authors' admin info on the LSB server.

So, what happened?

Our server techs think the hacker got access via a staff password. I am systematically disabling all staff server access to counteract this.

The only consequential impact of this defacement is bad publicity for LSB. It's small consolation that we're not alone--there were 9,000 similar defacements on the internet last week. It's part of the landscape these days, like email spam.

Questions, concerns?

Feel free to reply with any questions or concerns.

Mike.

**Jeanne Barrack** · #2 March 2nd, 2008, 04:04 PM

Can't respond without too many expletives deleted!
It doesn't matter if the site was "safe". The first reaction of anyone would be to run screaming into the hills because most of us aren't savvy enough to know if it could f*** their PC! (yeah, I took a deep breath before I wrote that!)
Maybe send out an announcement with the salient info to some of the reader loops??
This sucks so much.
Jeanne
(who is so p.o. she could scream)

**AJ Matthews** · #3 March 2nd, 2008, 04:07 PM

I agree, Jeanne. It's bad enough getting spammers invading blog space - I put mine on comment-moderation today because of this. But to think that some malicious f**k-wit has launched an attack on this site is horrible!

**Nina Pierce** · #4 March 2nd, 2008, 04:45 PM

Mike the whole situation bites. And like Jeanne, I ran screaming from the site and ran a diagnostic on my computer then took a shaky breath and went and checked my author site. Having no idea if it spidered out from LSB. Thanks for taking the time to explain everything. Sounds more like a pain in the butt for you, Raven, and the web guys.

**Mike** · #5 March 2nd, 2008, 05:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeanne Barrack

Maybe send out an announcement with the salient info to some of the reader loops?

Thought about that, but no. It would be too difficult to keep track of any questions asked in so many places, and people would end up thinking we were ignoring them. Feel free to point anyone to this topic--right-click this link and select "Copy shortcut" to have it for pasting anywhere--where we'll answer anything which crops up.

Quote:

The first reaction of anyone would be to run screaming into the hills because most of us aren't savvy enough to know if it could f*** their PC!

That's the right reaction, it would be mine too. There are many infected websites out there [especially porn and pirates] which can infect you by just visiting them if you don't have up-to-date security, so you can't be too careful. It took a while to figure out there wasn't anything bad being handed out from the hack page, or I'd have made this announcement earlier.

**Jade Morrison** · #6 March 2nd, 2008, 07:24 PM

I've heard there was a hacker making the rounds from another author on another pubs site. I wonder how many sites were affected?

**Savanna Kougar** · #7 March 3rd, 2008, 02:52 AM

Geez, some idiot has too much time on their hands. I didn't notice any problems with my blogspots via any links to Liquid Silver.

**Mima** · #8 March 3rd, 2008, 06:37 PM

i have to say, that if this happens in the future, i'd like to offer that maybe instead of posting about it on all the loops and forums, maybe we could just sit tight and trust Mike? I agree about the bad publicity. People are sympathetic, but this is not what we want to be known for.

**Mike** · #9 March 3rd, 2008, 07:02 PM

I think it was Douglas Adams who said something like:
"Nothing travels faster than light, except for bad news which obeys its own special laws."

So it's a universal thing

**Jade Morrison** · #10 March 3rd, 2008, 08:38 PM

Well, if it sounded like I was posting on other boards about our problems rest assured, I didn't. I was speaking with a writer that has published with LSB but is currently working on other projects. She edits for several pubs but keeps in touch with what's going on here. Naturally, when we both were aware the site had been hacked we wondered how serious it was and she told me that a hacker was making the rounds. If this has been discussed on forums somewhere besides LSB, it's not my lack of professionalism - someone else can take the credit. I thought if might help to know other people were having the same problem.

Penny Ash · #11 March 3rd, 2008, 10:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mima

i have to say, that if this happens in the future, i'd like to offer that maybe instead of posting about it on all the loops and forums, maybe we could just sit tight and trust Mike? I agree about the bad publicity. People are sympathetic, but this is not what we want to be known for.

I heard about this hacker first from another author who is NOT and LSB author. So don't kid yourself, LSB was not the only publisher attacked.

**Tina Burns** · #12 March 4th, 2008, 12:09 AM

I don't think Mima was pointing fingers Jade, so no worries.

**Jennifer Leeland** · #13 March 4th, 2008, 09:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mima

i have to say, that if this happens in the future, i'd like to offer that maybe instead of posting about it on all the loops and forums, maybe we could just sit tight and trust Mike? I agree about the bad publicity. People are sympathetic, but this is not what we want to be known for.

What can I say? I panicked a little. I was hoping someone would have info. My bad. Next time, I'll trust Mike.
I posted an update so everyone knows the information here.

**Mima** · #14 March 4th, 2008, 05:05 PM

eep! not pointing fingers, just making a suggestion. doesn't matter how the news spreads, it prolly will, but we don't have to pass it on.

**Celine Chatillon** · #15 March 5th, 2008, 09:28 AM

Between my Internet access problems (stupid cable internet sucks!) and being overwhelmed with life issues, I didn't know LSB had been hacked until I saw all the postings on the LSB yahoogroup digest. And then it was like panic central there... So, I'd advise to first check with Mike about these sorts of things before getting too overwrought by the whole thing and posting the news all over the place.