Due to a failure in the networking at the data centre where the Webspider server is located, we suffered a major outage overnight from about 22:15 GMT through to around 02:00 GMT.
Everything seems to be back online so I am going through services and web sites to make sure all is well once again.
UPDATE: Another outage last night when I was fast asleep - all fixed within a couple of hours
-DJ
The webspider server is on the move overnight 8th March 2023. This means the server will be shut down at 9pm this evening!
I will be doing full off-line backups during the day, which means things may seem a bit sluggish today. I will also be doing software upgrades before the move so we can start flying tomorrow!
See you on the other side tomorrow!
-DJ
Today a hacker gained access to one of the sites on this server (bradj.co.uk) and uploaded various payloads with scripts to do targeted attacks on other WordPress sites. Highly informative how the scripting was done.
I am sorry if you were the target of one of those attacks. Rest assured, when I found out where the attack was coming from I shut down the site concerned. I have changed all passwords and access to this site...
I thought at first someone had got round things after I upgraded the database software, but after visiting the log files over a couple of months, I realised it was simply someone guessing the password for an administrative user on the site concerned.
I identified the servers where the attack came from and the relevant authorities have been informed - but since when do large web service companies take notice of small fry like us! Access from that server and the servers hosting the external scripts have been blocked with appropriate firewall rules :)
* Stressful Thursday *
-DJ
Starting today I will be upgrading the database on the server to the latest version to cover security patches.
This will mean some downtime to various things like email and web sites.
** UPDATE **
The software is now running the latest version - just going through all sites to make sure they are working. Email should be up again.
-DJ