As many of you already know, yesterday Renderosity experienced an illegal intrusion to our website which redirected our members and visitors to another website that was trying to sell products or services. Immediately, our technical staff took action to restore the site to its normal operations and to prevent further intrusion. Today, our technicians are actively working to identify any additional vulnerabilities and fortify those areas.

 Protecting your information is Renderosity’s number one priority, and we can assure that no personal financial data can be accessed from our system in two ways. First, credit/debit card information is not stored in our database. Renderosity only stores what is called blind card info that is the first two digits and last four digits of an account number. The security codes on the backs of credit/debit cards are also not stored. The second way we assure security is that card information being processed for transactions is heavily encrypted. Passwords and US vendor’s social security numbers have a two tiered level of encryption to keep those items secure.

I will make an additional post at the end of the day to update you on the additional progress our security team has made.

I appreciate everyone who contacted us to make sure we were aware of the problem.  Of course we were, but it’s always reassuring to know that our members are also looking out and care for the well-being of our community.

Best Regards,
Jenifer Carey
Renderosity Vice President

 Thanks for the update, Jenifer!!  :)  We all appreciate it!

Thanks, but you should warn people to scan their systems, as the hijack not only moved people to another page it tired to infect the home computers as well.  Norton blocked the intrution to my computer and gave me an intrusion blocked message.

Aye, Diolch Yn fawr Cariad...

Thanks Jenifer. Glad I was able to help some folks regain their access in a small way in the mean time.

Yay for programmers! Programmers are the best! All love to the techies of the world! Saving the day is what they're best at! Hugs and free beer & saki for all the geek-types that keep the machinery running and protect us all from the nefarious ne'er-do-wells of the dark places! Hoorah!

Hmm? Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I am in software development. Thank you for noticing.

Thanx, Jennifer. This is an added "security blankie" for th ose of us who encountered the situation. Stacey did a great job of responding -- faster than lightning -- to those of us who contacted Renderosity about a situation which I'm sure everybody found frustrating. Along with the security of customer card info, I'm assuming any account info transmitted by PayPal is also protected? Props to the Rendo Tech Team, StaceyG, and you for your handling of this nerve-wracking situation.

Now would be the perfect time for everyone to update their passwords with new ones.

Quote - Now would be the perfect time for everyone to update their passwords with new ones.

Thats  great tip should be written like this :

Now would be the perfect time for everyone to update their passwords with new ones

 Whew...well I thought y'all were on the ball...I just never noticed...seems to have not affected me on  Google Chrome...

so that means things are not all fixed and ready for us to use yet?

Yeah, changing yer password's a grrrrreat idea -- 'specially appropriate reminder for those of us older (age-wise) members suffering from CRS! I just finished doing it. Thanx for the memory nudge.

Change my password??? 

But what is the hackers want to go into my account and buy me something? ;P

Matty: Cute! Probably wouldn't want to "buy you" anything you'd be interested in, though. Unless you're interested in them buying you a "headache."  :tt2:

Quote - Matty: Cute! Probably wouldn't want to "buy you" anything you'd be interested in, though. Unless you're interested in them buying you a "headache."  :tt2:

Hey all they need to do is look at my wishlist to know what to buy (with someones stolen CC! )

Quote - > Quote - Now would be the perfect time for everyone to update their passwords with new ones.

Thats  great tip should be written like this :

Now would be the perfect time for everyone to update their passwords with new ones

THANKS! I'LL TRY TO REMEMBER THAT TRICK. :tt2:

*Aye, Diolch Yn fawr Cariad...

*Gwyn!! You creep!! Stop calling the ladies "Darling" :lol:

did the large influx of "members" online at one time have something to do with the hacking? at one time I noticed 9255 users online at once along about the same time as hacking went down

...

As with many companies that maintain a large database, Renderosity is often the target of hackers. We have monitoring in place that helps us identify possible illicit uses, threats or attempts to hack our site. This monitoring helps us stop intruders before our system can be compromised in most cases; however, this incident was a little different which caused a slight delay in our detection. By slight, I mean about 15 minutes, our tech guys and monitoring they’ve setup is rather sophisticated. The area of vulnerability was patched, and we have reviewed of our system to ensure your Renderosity visit isn’t inconvenienced again. Also, we have made a modification to our system to provide a new level of general security.

The redirect pages that we had seen did not try to install people computers; however, Norton and other anti-virus software (depending on the settings) would have given people intrusion warnings based on the fact that the redirect was going to a domain name other than renderosity.com. Of course, we always advocate frequent virus scans, and that’s a precaution members who were redirect may want to take.

Password changes are not really needed either. We have a duel layered encryption on them, but then again changing passwords regularly is always good….just like virus scans. So please feel free to take that additional security step if you’d like.

No, the high number of people online didn’t have anything to do with it. Renderosity has been increasing in traffic and in search engine crawlers. So that large number of people online (at 9255) that you noticed was because of Google and yahoo crawlers.

I’m very sorry for the inconvenience you all experienced yesterday, and I appreciate the support that so many of you have shown.  

For those of you who asked us to extend our coupon that ended yesterday, since the redirect interfered when you were trying to use it, we have extended this coupon for you. This 15% off coupon ($25 min) is extended to tomorrow night (Tuesday, the 15th) at 11:59 pm system time. Please make sure you copy the code (20100612B15P25) and paste it in the coupon box, and press the “Apply” button.

Thanks,
Jenifer

Renderosity ROX!!!

** "F****or those of you who asked us to extend our coupon that ended yesterday, since the redirect interfered when you were trying to use it, we have extended this coupon for you."

Way t go Admin.. ...
**

Quote - Aye, Diolch Yn fawr Cariad...

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

....and I took the additional action of submitting the suspect website ("MyBookFace", in this case) to McAfee for further testing when this whole thing began.

I'll say it again:  The 'Rosity folks were all over this like white on rice.  Kudos for the oustanding job.  :thumbupboth:

Quote - Aye, Diolch Yn fawr Cariad...

FFS.  You owe me a new keyboard, mate.  :lol:

FFS.  You owe me a new keyboard, mate.

No, the high number of people online didn’t have anything to do with it. Renderosity has been increasing in traffic and in search engine crawlers. So that large number of people online (at 9255) that you noticed was because of Google and yahoo crawlers.

Welcome TallPockets! Tuesday, June 15, 2010 1:50 PM CST. 4028 artists currently online

StaceyG: HELLO! THANKS to your WONDERFUL staff for fixing this issue so promptly! MUCH appreciated. I, too, was hit with this REDIRECT to BOOKFACE as mentioned by some above.

I've been here a few years, to the CHAGRIN of some, and could not but notice the drastic JUMP in 'viewers' online. For years, it's about 4,00 maximum. Then, a short time ago, it DOUBLES to 8,000+?

Now, it's BACK to regular viewings numbers once again.

I haven't notice any real increase in viewers up until just recently. It's been steady for a long time. Then, it suddenly DOUBLES?

I take you at your word that it had nothing to do with the above issue.

 The dramatic up and down viewing numbers simply doesn't make common sense.

But, then again, MANY here feel the same about DUMB old TallPockets. WINK.

HUGS!

My BEST to you and yours and THANKS again!

TallPockets