Colin Wilson

Security is something we all have learnt to live with.  The additional security we all go through at airports, getting into government and public buildings, especially banks, has become common place.

Whilst we don’t like it, being pulled out of a line to receive a pat down by some officious security guard has become a necessity we bear without much complaint.

All this is for our protection.

The 9/11 attacks on the USA changed our lives dramatically. We lost part of our freedom. We lost it because none of us are secure. We are all vulnerable to attack. Therefore we have to be protected. It is for our own good.

It is not just our own person that is vulnerable to attack.

Computers and cyberspace – the Internet – have become an essential part of our lives. If we don’t have a computer in some form or shape and we don’t know how to log on via the Internet we are punished. More and more businesses penalize us for our incompetence at not using this resource by charging a penalty we have to bear if they have to go out of their way and actually send us a bill for the service they have provided us with.

This is disguised as saving the earth from the necessity of cutting down trees used in making the paper that would have been sent to us as the bill. These firms are doing their duty in an effort to make us GO GREEN.

It is this necessity and our reliance on computers and the Internet that control virtually everything we do in our modern society that has made us vulnerable to more attacks.

Cyber terrorism or cyber warfare is hitting all of us who use the Internet. An army of one or more individuals and whole organizations target computer information systems, infrastructures, computer networks, and/ or personal computer devices. They use various means of malicious acts, usually originating from an anonymous source that steals, alters, or destroys a specified target by hacking into a susceptible system.

iNews Cayman is one such susceptible system.

From installing spyware or a virus on your personal computer everyone of us who has a domain – a website – will get hit. It is not an ‘if’ it is a ‘when’.

Someone or group were able to plant a corrupted file into our system almost from our startup. When an organisation like us relies on news stories from the Internet it is easy for an innocent looking word to be added into a file and this is a doorway that is open and will let the perpetrator into our website to do any mischief he wants.

Our security system at the beginning was poor and we made the mistake of not updating all our operating systems, our widgets and plugins, etc. until it was too late. Until we were under attack.

And we have been under attack continually for the last eighteen months. It must have been noticeable to our readers for the number of times you could not log in to our site. We even had a redirect that sent anyone trying to reach us to a website selling Viagra!!

We have even got locked out because someone even managed to change our passwords.

We struggled on and then we installed a new security system that was “bulletproof”. It was so bulletproof it found so many corrupted files it shut the whole website down and would not let anyone in. And by anyone I mean NO ONE!!

So we had a website no one could log on to and no one could log into.  Completely Bulletproof!!!!!

Our only recourse was to have everything wiped off the website leaving a blank screen.

Using a partial backup we are now up and running, albeit with a slightly changed look. You will still have access to two years of stories (clicking on a date coloured green on our calendar top right will take you immediately to them for that day) but there are some gaps noticeable from the middle of September this year to the beginning of October reinstall. Please bear with us as this is going to take a few days as they all have to be reloaded by hand. Unfortunately a lot of the photographs that went with the stories have been lost from the database.

Many, many thanks for the sterling work done by Malcolm Ellis and his team at Delphi Ltd who worked tirelessly to get us back up and running with better security and a new IP address.

I hope by our mistakes you won’t do the same.

I will never be annoyed now at a security pat down – it is preferable to a complete shut down.