Simple Auctions Hacked Again

[bobfreedman]

Board members, we were hacked once again however after the first hack, SpearTip was hired and prevented a second attempted attack Sunday Morning. A decision was made to take the servers offline and do a through check to determine how they were able to penetrate our servers (although no encryption nor data loss occurred). We have estimated that there was a Trojan Horse installed on the first hack. We decided to take everything offline and rebuild our environment and harden the security even more.

The decision was also made to install redundant security measures to prevent future attacks. This is why the servers of all our clients utilizing our software have been down. These additional layers of security have now been implemented, the servers are being tested and should be ready to be back online tonight.

We have gone through great expense to prevent the this again and we are being very proactive in hiring additional staff and hiring SpearTip on a full time basis. This has been a very trying time as you can imagine and I appreciate our customers loyalty and hope that we can once again provide you the level service you are accustomed too. Thank you

Also, from the first hack, a complete forensic analysis was done and determined that no data loss occurred

Bob Freedman

[RedsFan1941]

Originally Posted by bobfreedman

We have estimated that there was a Trojan Horse installed on the first hack.

Also, from the first hack, a complete forensic analysis was done and determined that no data loss occurred

Bob Freedman

your people did a forensic analysis after the first hack and determined no data loss but somehow during this analysis a trojan horse was missed?

[GeoPoto]

Once upon a time I ran a company that almost ran out of cash (actually, we ran out of cash, but for a brief enough period that we were able to skinny through by stretching suppliers, delaying officer paychecks, and other things that would normally be unthinkable). At the next board meeting, the question came up whether we should be looking for another CFO. I took the position I would rather have the CFO who (almost) ran out of cash rather than the one that hadn't run out of cash -- yet. Nothing sharpens the mind like living through your own mistakes.

[UKCardGuy]

Originally Posted by bobfreedman

Also, from the first hack, a complete forensic analysis was done and determined that no data loss occurred

No data loss occurred isn't the same as a secure environment. To me, "No data loss occurred" means that all the data was unencrypted and the records were restored.. Was the forensic analysis performed on just the data integrity or the entire environment?

Based on the fact that a trojan horse had been left, I'm guessing it was the former. That's extremely disappointing. I'd have expected the full security implications to have been considered after the first hack. At best, the approach seems very naive.

If someone takes over my house, changes the locks and demands a ransom for the new keys - I wouldn't simply trust that they didn't make copies of the keys or sabatoge other entrances.