How to protect yourself and your proboard

[Thunda]

ALL ABOUT 'CRACKING' AND HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF
'Crackers' get hold of your passwords by gaining access to email via the security question, or by guessing the password of an admin or gmod, or running a scanner to do the same. Follow these guidelines:

• Ensure your email password security question is not obvious (don't have 'my favourite football team' then go talking about them non stop)
  
• You may want to change your email address / provider (the cracker may still have access to the old one)
  
• Use the 'Hide email' option (if you want members to contact you, use one of the free 'throwaway' emails for public view)
  
• Make ANY passwords difficult (use upper and lower case letters, mixed with numbers)
  
• Use different passwords for each account.
  
• Use different email for your main Admin account(s), and don't make it public.
  
• Don't let ANYONE know your passwords (if you make a note of them, keep them safe)
  
• If you share a computer/ computer account, don't 'let the computer remember password'
  
• Tell your main staff to do the same (2nd Admin, and G Mods)
  
• Don't open links in PM's, unless you know EXACTLY what it is.

Going on Holiday?
If you are going to be away from your board for a while, and not sure if you have a reliable 2nd Admin to be responsible, disable signups, (board settings), and make sure you set powers so that admins and gmods can't enable it again.
Post a message about signups, and a date you will allow it again.

If you are the only main staff on your board, it may be best to put it in maintenance mode, putting the message about it in the top of main header.


<center><marquee>This site is temporarily closed for holidays and maintenance, it will be reopened (date)etc etc etc......</marquee></center>

At the first sign of trouble
If you are online, check your profile, change your password as described elsewhere, ensure email hasn't been changed.

If you think a 'cracker' using your account is online with you, log out, then login, this should force the cracker to be logged out as well, and they won't know your password as you changed it above.

May be a good idea to change email to one of the 'free accounts' or another account on your present one if allowable.

While we are talking about emails, if you join a strangers board, you could also use a different email and password

If you suspect a member of staff is doing things to your board, demote ALL staff if you don't know which one.

Disable signups if you get spammers, ban by the three methods (email, name and IP). you can post an email link on your board for prospective members to join your board. use a different email than your admin one(throwaway one)

Remember that a cracker could have got into the 2nd Admins or Gmods accounts, and if you have allowed them the full powers, they could do a lot of damage.
so if it looks like it could be your 2nd admin messing the board up, it could be a cracker, thats why you need to demote staff, if there's a problem.

And also why you need to tell your staff to follow the guide.

Backing up your board
Should you lose your board to 'Crackers', try to keep a list of membernames and emails. especially of the regular ones, if your members get deleted, you can contact them. (may be a good idea to let your members know you will be doing it).

I said about backing up your board, well you can't back up your posts, but you can list the categories and boards, and you can save header and footer codes.
(Also useful if you make an error with your codes, or have a bad code)

Listing Categories and boards
simple as:-

Category name 1 ---ID
Boardname 1 ---ID
Boardname 2 ---ID
etc
Category name 2 ---ID
Boardname 1 ---ID
Boardname 2 ---ID
etc


ID is the 'one word name' you gave it, during create.

save to notepad on your pc.

Saving Headers and Footers
If you do it like this, you won't get confused. don't forget to add new codes when required.

Main Header
---------------
COPY MAIN HEADER CODES HERE


================
Main Footer
--------------
COPY MAIN FOOTER CODES HERE


================
Board Header
----------------
COPY BOARD HEADER CODES HERE


================
Board Footer
----------------
COPY BOARD FOOTER CODES HERE



================

Save to notepad on your pc.

If your boards are the same (code wise), there is no need to add the rest of the boards.

Forum colors

Don't forget to save your colors in order.

696969
blank
FFFFFF
FFB903
FFB903
FFB903
000000
40454C
blank
272A2F
444444
000000
FFFFFF
FFFFFF

these are the original default colors

Other images
don't forget to save the image url's, make a list in notepad as well, properly organised

Avatars
----------
AVATAR 1 = URL OF AVATAR 1
AVATAR 2 = URL OF AVATAR 2
.
.
.


custom smilies
---------------
SMILEY = URL OF SMILE
.
.
.

OTHER IMAGES (grads, etc)
---------------
.
.
.


Note, If you have an affiliates table, they will be saved in the main page footer codes (or wherever you display them.


and don't forget the little things, like censor word list (if you've changed it from default), ban list, etc.

---

I got this information from this site: safetynet.proboards33.com/

Hope this helps you all.
Thunda.

[x*~ Paige ~*x]

Thx for that

[paige]

good tips

[Thunda]

You're welcome, and thanks.

[*GavinH2007*]

Thankyou, my old email address got hacked into and they changed the password so I made a new one

Anyway, thanks

[jakee380]

thanks!

[Prue]

Thank you very much well my board won't get hacked.