Very sorry to hear but this should serve as a waning to anyone else here- You are ONE BAD DAY AWAY from *EVERYTHING* about your forum being wiped off the face of the Earth.

You *NEED* backups... Daily, weekly, monthly, SOMETHING. And even if your web host claims they back up for you that is not enough- You still need a backup on your own system(s) because your web host is also one bad day away from being wiped out.

I understand daily backups (manually) are annoying but if you invest any time in your forums there's no excuses for not at least monthly backups. Make it a routine thing on the 1st of the month.

You can google for some software/packages that will help automate database backups.

Yes, very sorry to hear about this. :(

You have, unfortunately, learned the hard way, ALWAYs have backups of everything (off-site).

@Gemma. I am sorry to hear that you were hacked. As it seems all your sites were affected it does seem like you were targeted.

I know a little of what this is like, as I was hacked twice and my personal information stolen, to be used by low life's and those who support them.

Your loss is more than mine and I am sorry to hear about it.

The hackers and scammers pose a real threat to decent people and many of us are doing our best to stop them, but sadly they sometimes have influence and are believed by others.

I am not a tech but If I can help just ask. AL.

Sorry to hear about this... :(

Let us know if theirs anything you need.

I think we've all dealt with scammers, hackers and hacker attempts. Birdoprey and Paul M have written some sound advice above.

I am however impressed how you were able to survive without backups for 8 years... that is actually quite a feat..

My old site was hacked, I decided to re-do the whole thing but it took tons of hours and months to get it back to where I needed, since then I setup a secondary backup server where if something happened to my main vps that there would be a backup server on a different machine that I can access it, you never know the internet and how evil some people are.

I feel for you mate, one of the worst feelings ever.

Thanks for the replies and offers of help :)

Didn't say I didn't have any backups....just none from the last few months and I'd be missing a hell of a lot of customizations and hacks that are either no longer available or I'd tailored to my own site needs. I've got a bitter taste in my mouth just now that leaves me wanting nothing to do with rebuilding or restoring anything.

I was given some server space by KW802 from my time helping out on v3 Arcade - it doesn't look like it was anything to do with the server though as only my site and files are affected. I agree with others saying it was a personal attack - which itself is interesting and I have an incline as to who may be responsible if that is the case (though I think they are too dumb to hack anything themselves) - I'm also seeing tons of site access entries from hidemyass.com IPs (not sure how relevant that is), I also have the feeling that Living Avatars admin panel may have something to do with it all but can't be sure (yet).

@Gemma. An area for concern is how did they gain access? Is your pc security also compromised

I think it would be a good idea to do some scans for a keylogger.

If you need a good free anti root kit program just send me a pm and I will give you the details.

Did you have the second patch level installed? I know it can be tedious to keep up with patches and updates. Maybe someday vB will have, like WordPress, auto-updates. If you're being targeted, you could try CloudFlare. It's free and takes on the task of handling these kinds of issues.

Also, if you're on cPanel, i'd highly recommend going to a Plesk host, or, since VPS technology is available on every street corner for a song, get a linux VPS, install Plesk (cheap) and let it update itself automatically to keep up with OS level security.

Don't give up. That's exactly what they want you to do. Just give em the finger and keep on trucking.

Gemma,

As Setishock said... "Don't give up" !

Please take care of yourself though and I hope you hear nothing but good news in the follow up!

Remember, they fight poorly and only those who "fight the good fight" live life better ;).