For the past week Tek has been down. We found out on Monday Night 8th June that our site had been hacked. While this immediately had me feeling rather angry I wish that rather than wasting my time I had just moved forward what we had intended, which was to shift our hosting to a NZ based company and improve our overall security.

While the feeling of violation meant I got angry with people I did have backups and the only thing lost was the uploaded images from the database which we were informed was corrupted. (I should have backed that up too I know)

So now we are back and faster than ever. We have learned a lot from the experience and while I won’t detail what we have done here feel free to ask via twitter or IM if you want to know more.

Our backup regime has now had a major overhaul and we will no longer be relying on the web-host to keep archives. Rather we will download the database and relevant file ourselves. Now I know where all that 1 TB storage that I brought can be used. Hey maybe I’ll be allowed to buy that Drobo I’ve been thinking about.

This also provided a teaching point for my ICT students as away from their realms of bit torrent and pesky Virus’ this was a real example of how their skills when used in a negative way can cause a lot of disruption. All in all an experience that has perhaps made me change my somewhat cavalier attitude towards security.