We are back! Site relaunch.

[Plasma]

Yes, we are back. We are very sorry about the long downtime, and lack of information during our absence, but we were working hard to bring the site back. Our other main goal was to keep our TF2/NS2 game servers running without interruption.

So what happened?
On March 24th, our forums were attacked and hacked successfully. As soon as we realized what happened, we took down our webservers to make sure no further damage could be made. Unfortunately, it was too late and [dot]it's very likely our forums database was compromised.[/dot]

What does this mean to you?
The hackers were able to access all information you put in your forum profile such as your e-mail addresses and SteamID. These information were accessible to other registered users as well (except if you selected "Hide my email from others"). We'd like to stress that their goal was to take over (and take down) our forums and game servers, not steal passwords or email addresses.

All passwords are encrypted in the database, they are not stored in plain text. To decrypt and recover hashed passwords, you need to brute force every single one and that takes a long time depending on how complicated your passwords are. Still, we advise all our users to change their passwords for added security. If you used that password for other site like Gmail, Facebook, etc... (Don't do that!), I'd advise you to change them as well. Again, it's very unlikely your other accounts are at risk, but we can't be sure.

Why did it take so long to get the forums back online?
We had to find just how much damage was done to our webserver and make sure no malicious code was added somewhere. In the end, we decided to not take any risks, and reinstall everything from scratch. Finally, we switched to another webhost for added protection. All this process unfortunately took quite some time. Hopefully, the wait was worth it.

Have you guys learned anything at all from this mess?
Yes, definitely. We've added more protection and anti-brute force measures; we're also forcing new members to use more complex passwords. We'll be restricting access to our SourceBans website for the next few weeks, so if you want to submit or protest a ban, please use the proper boards on our forums.

Any good news at all?
Yes. By moving to a new host and rebuilding everything from scratch, you should notice faster browsing on the forums. We've also cut down our costs by about $30, which will be reflected next month in our Donation Center (from $130 to $100). By decreasing our monthly costs, we're now able to completely get rid of the Pinion ads on the TF2 Votation server. You will see the good old MOTD in TF2 again.

I am a Donor. What is going on with my donations?
We will be sending PMs to all Donors whose membership expired between March 24th and today. We'll give you guys 24 hours to decide if you'd like to renew before cutting your Donor access.

If you have questions regarding the attack, you can either contact us by email: admin@hyperiongaming.org or through the forums.