Sites that are hacked

[concerned]

I previously posted a thread about Site owners that lie. In addition to that thread I want to add this one. Anyone that comes across a site that claim that they have been hacked at any time or closed due to spamming should list them here. I'd like to see how many there are out there.

I'll start.

applematrix.com/net/us - 2 Times reported for spamming so far

Ematrixusa - 1 time they were hacked

The Single List - 3 times they were hacked

Xecillconnect - 1 time hacked as far as I know

[Agent|Star]

Sites really do get hacked and get reported for spam.... We can't confirm the sites above have or haven't been so why does this relate to your other thread "sites that lie"? Im not sure.

Can I list here sites that have been hacked that arent matrix sites? :D I think its only fair, cause it seems that your attempting to totally make it appear as though all matrix sites that are hacked are lies. Just asking cause id like to contribute to this list :D

[concerned]

First of all, I am not saying that all site owners that claim they were hacked are telling lies, but at the same time I think that if there is a lot of sites with the same excuse, it looks bad. If one or two sites get hacked, then it is one thing, but when they use it as an excuse to close up shop, then it is unacceptable. If most site owners were smart, they would back up their sites every day so that if they did get hacked, they could restore the files the next day and keep operating. That is what most people do. On the other hand, there have been sites that claim that they were forced to close because of a hack. Those would be the site owners that are liers. We all know that if you are hacked you can fix the problem and keep operating.


Originally posted by BigStarr
Sites really do get hacked and get reported for spam.... We can't confirm the sites above have or haven't been so why does this relate to your other thread "sites that lie"

As for this quote, you are right, we cannot confirm that they were actually hacked, but they have all claimed that they have either in a forum or on their website. You should do your research on this. The single list alone claimed that they were hacked 3 times on 3 different servers. Do you believe that? If you were hacked once, wouldn't you take some measures to stop it from happening again? Maybe put up a firewall or something. Then when it happened a second time, don't you think you would change providers? If you owned the equipment, wouldn't you reprimand the person that allowed this to happen? Come on now, these are lame excuses. What I am trying to show with this thread is that it is more than an coincidence, it is their excuse to close up shop all too often.

[damion]

I find it kind of hard to believe on the hacking issue. I do not want to call them liars because I do not know for sure if they were hacked or not but.......
I ran EZ Expo for months completely unsecure before it was automated. I did keep a daily backup and on top of that - the payment processor kept records of all that was paid and had several different ways of looking up information so that you, in all actuality, could completely rebuild your site if needed.

I never had a problem with being hacked. I have had people try and send me worms but good ol' Norton was there to help me on that aspect. The only way I see someone getting hacked is if the entire server is hacked on the host's end. I do not know of any reputable hosting company that does not take some measures to keep people from fiddling with their servers.

In my opinion - excuses.
On the other hand - I do know of several sites that have some vulnerabilities that would allow for it in their code. I know of one site that, when they first opened, had a code problem that emailed everyone's password and login information, including admins, to everyone in the database every time a new person ordered.....This has been fixed though if you are wondering.

I personally think that anyone using the "I got hacked" excuse should be shot with a stupid dart. There is no reason a website owner should not make daily backups (if not more than once a day) of their database and any other pertinent information about their site.

I can rant on this if I want to because I think a lot of people are taking the matrix business in a direction that it should not go - and they have been for months. When I started EZ Expo I meant it to be run as a solid business and although some of that has changed I see to many people coming in, starting up a site, making a lot of money, and then shutting the doors just to make a quick buck because they know that it is an easy business to start. They also know that their are a lot of people (or at least were) that would jump on board on any new matrix site that came up.
I actually find it sickening that there are that many people out there who would take the time to build a site and advertise it etc. just to make a few bucks off someone else and run with it.

I know this got way off topic but I just ran into it while ranting.

Now that my two cents have been expelled....
Later..

Damion

[concerned]

Thanks Damion. I don't think you really got this thread off track too much. I am trying to show exactly what you said. This thread is somewhat of an experiment. If there are only a few, then I will accept that as ok. But if there are more than 10 or so, then it is more than a coincidence. I would consider that an excuse.

Now, to get this back on track I have something that I feel belongs here. It isn't exactly a hack, but I feel it fits in here.

Sublimematrix claims that their host went down. They haven't been operating since. Here is what I found at matrix agency.

Originally posted by tjg555 at matrix agency

Seems sublimematrix was nothing more than a big scam. The owner sent a lame email stating:

Several customers have informed that our site is down. We immediately
contacted our hosting service and have confirmed there was a hosting error.

They informed it may take up to 3 days, but that it should be resolved in 48
- 72 hours. In the meantime, we can not access our normal e-mail accounts
so we have set up a temporary e-mail address at sublime_temp@hotmail.com.
Please use this for a contact e-mail for now.

We are sorry for this inconvenience and wanted to inform our customers as
soon as we learned the details. We should be back up within the time frame
specified by our hosting service.

Best Regards,

Sublime Matrix Team

That was on 8/13 and the site is still down and he will not respond to emails.
Anyone know something I don't?

[damion]

Sounds like someone is trying to wait for money from a card processor before they flip you the bird.

Damion

[Agent|Star]

That site which claimed to being hacked 3 times I have left my comments on that topic within this forum. Something like that it sounds like BS cause the chances of that happening is slim (but possible). Unless of course you are an extremely vulnerable site owner (and your host provider too) with that said 3 times is a lot it would appear they haven't applied any form of security practices. If you cant secure your online business, you aren't ready for one. :(

Now I have to STRONGLY agree that being hacked is not a valid excuse at all to have your site offline for over 48 hours. Honestly, I dont understand how a site is hacked? What do they do crack your admin pass for your control panel? Or do they hack your FTP info... I just don't understand it.. Anyhow, like concerned said: all site owners should be and better be backing up everything! From your site design, emails to your pay processor statements.... I hope you have a database of all your customers and details because I've heard of people saying "PayPal froze me I dont know who anyone is." Come on people!! Back it all up, your a business this is ESSENTIAL! Sorry if I rambled on.....

More to the point! I can contribute one site that probably not many knows of cause it is very old... It was the first site I invested in domain named GetExtra.Com. When they claimed to being hacked their frontpage had some very disturbing images and words like "GetExtra.Com is Owned by:________" Then most of it wasn't in English lol. This site GetExtra.Com had that disturbing hacked page up for weeks. When they finally gained control they put a notice up that they were hacked and closing shop due to that and would be refunding everyone in the order they appear in the tracking list.



There is a longer story to this, I dont want to throw off the thread. You can PR me if you wanna hear more...

[MatrixWatch]

First.. about this whole "off track" thing. Starr, you can tell the whole story. I'm interested. The reason I put my foot down about thread hijacking is when some members would come onto the middle of a thread and start ranting about something COMPLETELY unrelated, and then people would argue back against his rant, and then he would say how stupid everything is here at MatrixWatch and blah, blah, blah. That is what drove me nuts, because a thread on illegal lotteries would turn into a discussion on how many eBay auctions were unfairly banned.

Feel free to continue the discussions into whatever directions you'd like. I see that you more-established members are focused enough.

[Agent|Star]

K cool WatchDog... Well to tell the story from the beginning.... =o)


IT BEGINS:
On eBay I paid for information on a new way of getting electronics at a low cost (this is how most of us found matrix) GetExtra was on the list along many other sites that are still around. I checked out most of them and bought into GetExtra.Com. I'll be honest I didn't understand the system 100% when I made my purchase. It was only after names began adding to the list that it hit me exactly how the system would work.

CONTACT WITH OWNER:
I was just starting out my webdesign skills and I thought they could use a new look to help them get more customers (I wanted to cycle faster lol). They accepted my offer it was very cheap as this was my first site the deal was I design them a new site for 30bucks and unlimited webhosting (they claimed they had a friend that owned a webhosting biz). So the deal went through and I made them the site got my money and web services as promised.

THE HACK:
Only within a week of the new look being put up they were hacked. As I said above all pages were gone and only a frontpage was viewable. On this frontpage were disturbing looking people (nothing nude) just weird.... There was a lot of text in a strange language I have no idea what any of it said but I could read "GetExtra.Com is owned by:_________." I really wish I saved the page but that was back when I didn't know the things that I know now. This hacked page stayed up for a week or two.

MY REFUND:
I was already getting worried of course cause allowing this page to stay up that long I couldn't believe it. I started thinkin, "Wtf they are faking it and running with my money!" So since I had worked out a deal with them regarding the unlimited webhosting, I have one upper hand then the rest of the people on the tracking list. I knew there was a person connected to the site owners. I approached the suppler of the webhosting, I started out by asking him question about the webhosting and didnt mention the Matrix Site. I got him to talk to me over 3 times and transferr out the domain name that I got lol so that I had full control of it. After all that was done I questioned him about the Matrix site. I let him know that I was fully aware that he knows who the site owners are and that this "hacked" appearance I wasn't buyin it and I would contact authrities if I don't get my money back now! I told him.. You better contact those site owners and blah blah blah.... =o) He replied to that very fast and said he didn't know what happened, they were infact hacked, and that he was actually a cycled customer from the site. He also ended the letter saying he didn't want me to discredit his webhosting services so he would refund me all the money I paid. LOL Of course, I knew something was "fishY" he was willing to refund me! I really think he operated the site but anyhow I gave him my address and sure enough a money order came in for $250 bucks so I got my money back.

THE NOTICE:
During the time I was waiting for my refund to arrive in the mail the site came back online and gained control of. Like i said in my first post they claimed they were hacked and because of that they were going to close shop and start refunding people. Two days later there was another added post stating that PayPal had frozen their money. They said that because the site was hacked they contacted PayPal and asked PayPal to suspend the account because they were afraid of these hackers gaining control of their account but when they asked PayPal to unsuspend the account PayPal refused. Another notice was put up asking us the customers to contact PayPal and help unfreeze the account. I stopped checking the site after that... A month or so passed by and there was nothing up, they just disappeared. I dont know if anyone else was refunded I was never contacted from the site owners.

Well after being apart of the forums and finding the matrix world (hundreds of other sites) I learned there are other ways to get refunds like contacting the payprocessor myself lol... I probably could have got double refunds!!! hahah im playing =o)~~~ As far as this site, sometimes I think about it... Its possible they really were hacked and they really did have the PayPal account frozen by themselves. It wouldn't make sense they'd pay me to do webdesign and then soon after claim to being hacked? Even the fact that they asked for customers help to contact PayPal and help unfreeze the account... However, it is still very possible that last minute they decided they didn't want to run the site anymore and put up a false hack. I did find it very interesting how quick and easy the host provider jumped to refund me to hush me up.

If they did fake this hack I think they would be the first matrix site to actually appear to be hacked with the frontpage looking as it did. All these mor recent matrix sites that claim they were hacked didn't had a frontpage that looked like someone tookover the site right? Anyways maybe by saying what I just did they'll start to use that as an idea =o\

[MatrixWatch]

I think you are right about the matrix-site owner being the hosting-service owner.

[Agent|Star]

Yeah... I hate to go off topic I still have a few emails about the conversation when I made the website for them... I still have the webdesign as well ( i back up my webwork ).

Whenever I think about it... kinda eats me up that I got out with my refund and possibly the others didnt... This guy I think sell hosting on ebay and owns a lot of online stores...



UPDATE::
Actually I just checked I have all the emails even him offering me the refund...

[concerned]

Thanks BigStar for the story.

That was completely on track. My original goal was to try to flush out the sites that make that claim, but if anyone else has a story like that, then please post it. My hunch told me that this kind of think would happen, and I wanted to see how far it could go.

In response to your story, I think the guy did plan on taking off with the money. The paypal excuse is even worse than the hack excuse because we all know he could have gotten another pay processor especially back then before the freezes started happening. Just a poor excuse all around.

Thanks for the story.