1st / 2nd Harbord Scouts Be Prepared!

Hi all,
Just a bit of information regarding the hacking incident that plagued this website last week.

The site had code injected into it that co-opted the site to be a redistributor of SPAM email that would redirect the recipient of the mail to malicious websites intended to install potentially dangerous code on their computers. Of course you all know about SPAM and NEVER click on link in an unsolicited piece of email from an unknown sender, do you?

Unfortunately we are unsure of how the site got corrupted in the first place but it is most likely the source of the infection is from one of the machines of the users that accessed the site. I strongly recommend that all users check that their anti-virus and anti-malware software is up to date. You should ensure that you use strong passwords and never access this or other sites through computers that you are unsure about the security on (and NEVER use internet kiosks or public machines to access password controlled websites).

We will keep a close eye on the site for further incidents but have take some additional preventative measure to harden it against further attack but of course the Eastern European gangs have considerable talent and resource at their disposal and significant motivation to continue to attack websites around the world (I Just read that Nike has been hacked) for their own nefarious purposes and it is a hazard of being on the web.

In the final analysis the hackers couldn't care less about our site or its data but rather just wanted use of the computing power it represented to pursue their own ends and we only seem to have lost a week or two's access to our site rather than any data.

Cheers
Webmaster