NZFF

Posted: **Wed May 13, 2009 5:24 pm**

Folks,

Today, AVSIM was destroyed by a hacker. Both of our primary servers were hacked and the partition tables destroyed, and that will be very difficult to overcome. I wonâ€™t speculate on who did it, but we will have a forensic done on our disks and scrutinize the logs to validate our suspicions.

I would appreciate if you could post the following as a news item or announcement on your websites or forums. Nels and Francois, I know we have been competitors, but I would very much appreciate you posting this on your web sites, if you could.

PRESS RELEASE: AVSIM Hacked!!

Tom Allensworth, CEO and Publisher of AVSIM, today issued the following announcement; â€œWe regret to inform the flight simulation community that on Tuesday, May 12, AVSIM was hacked and effectively destroyed. The method of the hack makes recovery difficult, if not impossible, to recover from. Both servers, that is the library / email and web site / forum servers were attacked. AVSIM is totally offline at this time and we expect to be so for some time to come. We are not able to predict when we will be back online, if we can come back at all. We will post more news as we are able to in the coming days and weeks. END

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?t=196438

Posted: **Wed May 13, 2009 5:32 pm**

I have never understood what joy hackers get out of doing this sort of vandalism, and can only hope that Avsim does manage to get the files restored. Makes me think that I MUST do another full back-up of my computer today, just in case.........

A good reminder to us all to check our anti-virus and firewalls, and to back up everything.

Avsim is/was a great online resource, and I hope that they are back online again soon.

Smooth landings.

Posted: **Wed May 13, 2009 5:33 pm**

Why would you? really come on. What is the motivation to hack a Flight Sim site? there are some saddos out there.....

Posted: **Wed May 13, 2009 5:41 pm**

That's a real shame, apart from anything that's a huge amount of stuff in the file library alone to lose. Also opens your eyes to just what kind of damage one sad person can do.

Posted: **Wed May 13, 2009 5:46 pm**

*speechless*

Posted: **Wed May 13, 2009 5:49 pm**

Njbb1995 wrote:
QUOTE (Njbb1995 @ May 13 2009, 05:33 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Why would you? really come on. What is the motivation to hack a Flight Sim site? there are some saddos out there.....

Seems to me, from Tom's statement that this isn't entirely random, and they've got their suspicions as to who the guilty party may be.. still a saddo, but perhaps one with a grudge?

Interestingly, there was a topic started the other day regarding suspect spam email, and where the mail list came from - you wonder whether the two are related..

Posted: **Wed May 13, 2009 6:17 pm**

leostretch wrote:
QUOTE (leostretch @ May 13 2009, 05:49 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Seems to me, from Tom's statement that this isn't entirely random, and they've got their suspicions as to who the guilty party may be.. still a saddo, but perhaps one with a grudge?

You gotta wonder what a little citizen-funded research might discover, imagine a $5 donation per person going quite a long way.

Posted: **Wed May 13, 2009 6:55 pm**

im not too worried about the current files being lost. im sure lost of the files are increadibly old and unused. if they get back online, uploads and the downloads can resume... like a fresh start. all i care about is them finding the b@$t@rds who did it, taking them to court and at least extracting a large sum of money out thier asses. they deserve a huge boot where the sun dont shine, not for just destroying files that make one of the most realistic games ever made even more realistic, and breaking the barrier between virtuality and reality, but for destroying a perfectly good piece of technology, and the dignities of those whose livleyhood it is to maintain the site.

i hope the recovery process is as painless as possible for them and that the costs to recoup are reimbursed by the party at fault.

Posted: **Wed May 13, 2009 7:40 pm**

as an avsim reviewer it is gutting, esically all the ahrd work and effort we put in to the reviews and site to keep it what it is, i would say that avsim will be back, and better than ever, it is a huge dissappointment that someone/s would do this to a site that helps fs community. deeply gutting, i really hope they catch the buggers

Jason

Posted: **Wed May 13, 2009 8:14 pm**

I guess like many others here, AVSIM has been a daily visit for me for many years.

While we can jump up and down as much as we like, this is a sad commentary on society today.

Posted: **Wed May 13, 2009 8:29 pm**

I'm absolutely gutted, not just for the senseless loss of files and data, but that someone would want to do that to our charming little hobby. It's normally such a great place with such good people. People who do things like this only care for what they can do, not what they should or should not do. I hope they find out who did it..
I'm also slightly grateful every file I've ever downloaded is stored safely on disk..

I'm ready and willing should they need files reuploaded.

Posted: **Wed May 13, 2009 8:40 pm**

That really sux.....The avsim library constitutes years of work.

I'm just thinking of the data/projects I haven't saved locally since I thought the Avsim Library would always be there....I may need to get some of these back off people for upload.

Posted: **Wed May 13, 2009 8:42 pm**

Selfish Bastards.

And to think I just formatted my HDD recently, so I've lost all the files I had that I probably won't be able to download again. =/

Posted: **Wed May 13, 2009 9:22 pm**

We would need all fans of AVSIM to help to put back the file library together. I am sure there are many poeple have different files from Avsim and will be able to upload them back to the file sotrage,

I guess this attack could be from internal as no one wants to hack a free file hosting website.

Posted: **Wed May 13, 2009 9:31 pm**

Really sucks for those who havn't got backups or original installs- don't ARNZ host all their FSX skins there?

Posted: **Wed May 13, 2009 9:56 pm**

A bit of both I believe

Posted: **Wed May 13, 2009 10:24 pm**

Hang 'em high!

Avsim has been such a great resource for everything Flight Sim. Hope they can resuscitate her.

Posted: **Wed May 13, 2009 10:29 pm**

OMFG!! What a loss to the community. I'm not too worried about the files as everything I ever download remains safely tucked away on my HDD - however the loss of the forums is nothing short of distastrous. In fact I was looking for guidance on working with AFCADs tonight and ALL the results I'm googling are appearing from the Avsim servers........

Posted: **Wed May 13, 2009 10:37 pm**

There really are some spiteful people out their , jealous , diffinely a looser without friends ! .

Posted: **Wed May 13, 2009 10:39 pm**

This really sucks big time

--- another hit for the flight sim community..first Mircosofts announcement now this...never really thought about it before but I guess it would pay to upload files to two or more sites (such as flightsim.com, simouthose etc) to be on the safe side....

NZFF

Avsim Destroyed!