PSA: We're back, here's a post-mortem!

Lionir [he/him]@beehaw.orgmod to Beehaw Support@beehaw.org – 382 points –

Hi Beeple!

Here's a vague version of events :

  • 11PM EST: Lemmy.world got hacked

  • 12:20AM EST: Blahaj.zone got hacked

  • 12:25AM EST: I shut down the server

  • 12:30AM EST: I make announcements to tell people about this

  • 12:45AM EST: I have an idea of what the problem is but there is no fix

  • 2:20AM EST: I go to sleep

  • 8:50AM EST: The server is booted back up, steps are applied to mitigate issues (Rotating JWTs, Clearing DB of the source of vulnerability, deleting custom emoji), UI is updated with the fix, CSP and other security options are applied

  • 11:40AM EST: We start testing things to make sure are working And well, now here we are.

If you have issues logging in or using an app:

  1. Log out if you somehow are still logged in

  2. Clear all cache, site data, etc.

  3. Hard refresh Beehaw using CTRL+F5

  4. Log back in.

If you still have issues, write to us at support@beehaw.org

To be clear : We have not been hacked as far as we know, we were completely unaffected. This was done preemptively.

Oh yeah, in case, you haven't, this is a good opportunity and reminder to follow us on Mastodon as the communication line was still up despite Beehaw being down : https://hachyderm.io/@beehaw

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12:30AM EST: I make announcements to tell people about this

I think it'd be beneficial to have more backup lines of communication for announcements than just Mastodon.

We have Discord and Matrix channels as well. Do you have anything to suggest?

Just something Google-friendly.

Nah.

I'll be blunt and say that unless you were already in-the-know, Beehaw pretty much ceased to exist when the server was shut down. Not the best result amidst a hacking scare.

Much preferable to the announcement of Beehaw was hacked and lost your user credentials <or more>. Security trumps convenience.

Having an entirely separate website, blog, or social media account for announcements that's accessible via a Google search wouldn't factor into how secure Beehaw is.

And how were users supposed to be able to see the sidebar while the server was offline?

You could have checked it before and follow their Mastodon-style account and join their matrix and/or discord groups, like most of us did.

Because everything they do server-wise is announced in those places, preemptive shutdowns included.

Alternative ways to reach the admin team and to be kept aware of anything happening with the server exist. If you didn't take the time (seconds) to join at least one of them, that's not the server's owners fault.

Like most of us did

Considering the responses to the thread, I don't think that's true.

Alternative ways to reach the admin team and to be kept aware of anything happening with the server exist.

A lot of people, myself included, are still getting used to Lemmy. The status quo has been if stuff was happening to Reddit there was an easily accessible server status page you could search up. I tried to do the same this time around and Google came up with diddly-squat. I don't think googling Beehaw to figure out what's going on is that illogical of a response.

Considering the responses to the thread, I don’t think that’s true.

Given that you aren't in any of the groups, nor following their mastodon account. I don't think what you think based on the responses on a sole thread has any merit

A lot of people, myself included, are still getting used to Lemmy. The status quo has been if stuff was happening to Reddit there was an easily accessible server status page you could search up. I tried to do the same this time around and Google came up with diddly-squat. I don’t think googling Beehaw to figure out what’s going on is that illogical of a response.

Every time you open Beehaw (or any Lemmy instance for the matter) on the right side you'll find the description of the server below the "trending communities" box. There the admins put important links, including the three alternative ways to reach them (Mastodon, Matrix and Discord). You didn't have to google anything, it was just taking a look the main page of the server, see the section titled "Beehaw" and read it (Something that could have been done any time the server was up)

Given that you aren't in any of the groups, nor following their mastodon account. I don't think what you think based on the responses on a sole thread has any merit

I'm gonna say this only once, but that's an incredibly rude thing to say. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt in my previous reply but it's obvious now that you're just treating me like an idiot.

I think what I've had to say has merit. Given the upvotes there are obviously some others following the conversation that share my view. Even if there wasn't though, I'd still think it's important that I spoke up.

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Can you be more precise? What exactly do you recommend? I don't know what would be more "Google-friendly"

Maybe the front page of the domain could be news and info with the actual forums down a level? Not sure if that works with the software.

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