Hackers...

[lambadmin]

Yes. Lately, there's been an increase of apparent random login attempts. Spam bots have been trying to log on to forums using existing usernames, and trying random passwords.

So, once again - make sure you set a strong password on your account!

That stands for your login here on BWE, as well as any other place on the internet where you have a login account. Your password should be a non-dictionary word, at least 8 (or more!) characters long, a combination of uppercase +lower case + a number or a special character. That is the best password practices that ought to keep you safe.

While we have a full control of our forum, and we're keeping it as safe as it can be - we do not have a control over the internet. Usernames on internet forums are public domain information - passwords aren't.

These are the random bot login attempts, not humans. I can tell as these 5 random login attempts happen within 1 second.

We have security measures in place to temporarily lock out user's account after 5 unsuccessful login attempts. That's that email you guys see - automatic email from the forum gets fired out informing you about that. And that pretty much stops the bot in it's tracks.... for 15 minutes, when it moves on and tried to hack in another user account. The chance of random password guessing routine the bot is using guessing your password in 5 unsuccessful login attempts that's all the forum will allow is rather tiny, if existent at all.

We'll look into way to stop this all together. We may start hiding usernames, blocking some countries where the spam bots seem to be out of control all together (China, Russia, etc.)

So - not too big of a deal, as it is.
With a strong /complex password in place, really not much to worry about.

Hope this clarifies the things.