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Why are some people mean? Why do some humans feel it is necessary to hurt other humans for no reason? Is it because they had a bad childhood? Maybe some bully at school beat them up and stole their lunch money so now they have to prove to the world that they are tougher than someone else. Or maybe someone at work got the promotion they felt they deserved so now they have to prove that they are smarter than someone else. Maybe they’re just plain evil. Whatever the reason, I never can understand it. Dogs aren’t like that. If we bite you it’s because you threatened us. If we steal your food its because we’re hungry. We don’t do things to hurt others for no reason.

Last night my website was hacked by a group that calls themselves N2N Algerienn Hackers. This morning I received an email from my site saying my password was changed. Hmmm… When I checked my site I saw this:

N2N Hackers Website

Why would someone want to do this to me? I’m not even human; I’m canine. Why me? Maybe a dog bit him or chased him down the street one time so now he is taking it out on me. I filed a complaint with the ASPCA, but they said hacking my website cannot be considered animal cruelty. Maybe I was just the victim of a random act of meanness. I guess it’s true what they say on the farm: four legs good, two legs bad.

So who exactly are N2N Algerienn Hackers? I don’t know. How do you fix a site hacked by N2N Algerienn Hackers? I don’t know that either. Fortunately I know some good humans at threeSixteen who were able to fix the damage to my blog and get it back up today. For the benefit of anyone else who has been hacked by N2N, I’ve asked them to explain what they did to fix it. Here’s what they said:

The first step with any hack (not just N2N) is to change all your passwords (hosting provider, WordPress and database). If they got your passwords and try to come back this will slow them down if not stop them. I used passwords that are stronger than the ones you were using (passwords with upper and lower case with letters, numbers and special characters are harder to hack).

The next step was to replace your .htaccess file with your original one. N2N modified this file to redirect all your traffic to their site. That’s how they got their site to show up instead of yours. Removing this allowed your WordPress site to get traffic.

As the secondary part of their hack, they altered data in your database to display a message stating that you were hacked by N2N Hackers. And to make it more difficult to recover, they deleted all your posts and comments from the database.

So next we restored your database backup. Unfortunately, your last back up was in August 2009 so it did not contain any posts or comments since then. However, we were able to use Google’s cache to retrieve your more recent posts. Here’s a helpful tip that bears explaining: If you ever again lose content from your website, use Google and search for site:www.simbadog.com (or any other site). The search results will show all the pages on the site that Google had previously indexed. If a page listed there is no longer available on your site, look for a link in that listing that says “cached.” This will show you what Google saw the last time they visited the page. You can then copy and paste content from there back into your site, which is what we did. Note that Yahoo and Bing provide this capability also. If Google didn’t cache the pages you need, maybe one of the others did.

They also left some image files in your uploads folder, which I deleted.

The final step was to perform a full backup of files and the database. I recommend you do this yourself a little more frequently. I also notified your hosting provider. N2N Hackers brag about their technique, which involves a vulnerability in the Linux kernel. I asked your provider to ensure they keep their servers up-to-date with patches and security updates.

John

So that’s my story for today. If you’ve been hacked by N2N Algerienn Hackers let me know how your recovery went and if they ever came back.

That didn’t take long. I already blew three of my four new year’s resolutions. Only my last resolution remains. So I’m going to try very hard to keep it. From now on I’m only going to say nice things about my sister Nalla. No matter how tempted I am to talk about her bad points, I’m going to resist the temptation and be good. Nothing she does will get me to say something bad. Even though she’s mean, selfish, pushy, nosey and annoying…

Oops.

Oh well. There’s always next year.

I’ve heard that a lot of people make New Year’s resolutions. Since dogs don’t do this, I’m having a little trouble trying to figure out what these really are. What I’ve learned is that people do things that they don’t want to do, and don’t do thing they do want to do. To make things more complicated, every year they make a list of these things. Then they promise themselves they will do the things they want to do that they don’t do, and that they won’t do the things they do that they don’t want to do. Over the weeks that follow they end up throwing away their lists and resolve to try it again next year. Humans. Who can figure them out?

Well, in keeping with the New Year’s spirit, I’ve decided to try this out. I’ve made my list of resolutions. I’m going to see how long I can stick to it. So here goes; my New Year’s resolutions:

1. I will not pee on the floor anymore. I’ve gotten better, but this is something I still struggled with.
2. I will not bark like a mad dog when the door bell rings.
3. I will not beg for food at the table.
4. I will only say nice things about Nalla in my blog. That’s going to be a tough one.

So there’s my list. I’m going to try my best to keep these resolutions. I’ll let you know how I do.

Simba and Nalla with Santa Paws

I can’t believe it’s almost Christmas. Time seems to go by so fast. It has been three months since my last blog post. I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to write. Let’s see… my birthday… Nalla’s birthday… lots of people came to visit… Next thing I know, it’s Christmas! I’ll catch up on that other stuff someday. But for now, let’s talk about Santa Paws.

Mom dressed us up in Christmas clothes and took us to see Santa Paws at PetsMart last Sunday. He looked a little different than I remember from last year. He’s wearing glasses now. I guess he’s getting older. I hope he doesn’t have trouble reading his naughty and nice lists. I’m on the nice list so I’m going to get lots of presents. Guess which list Nalla is on. I told Santa he can give me dried liver, stuffed pigs ears, meat-flavored rawhide and just about any other yummy treats he can find. He said he’ll see what he can do. Funny, he said that last year too. Here’s a picture of us with Santa and another picture of us at home in our Christmas clothes.

Simba and Nalla – Christmas 2009

I like dressing up. I didn’t always, but when I do, everyone tells me how handsome I am. Well, duh! I just don’t understand why I need to wear a shirt for people to notice that. So now I like getting dressed up. These outfits are made of that red fuzzy stuff Santa wears. Santa said he loved our outfits. He asked if we want to go back to the North Pole with him and be Elves in his workshop. Yeah, right. As if I’m going to work. I might damage my manicure. I didn’t tell him that ’cause I was afraid he’d move me to the naughty list. So I just said, “Maybe next year, Big Guy.”

I feel bad for Nalla. She’s just going to get a lump of coal for Christmas ’cause she’s so naughty. She’s always chasing me and biting my ankles. I can’t even go to the potty in peace. As soon as I come back in she’s waiting to attack me. If we both get treats, she swallows hers quickly then tries to take mine. And although she’s much better, occasionally she still has that pooping problem. But naughty or not, I have to admit, she does look cute in that red dress.