“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:11-12)
Earlier today a hacker took over most of my online identity. I believe they started at www.rogeroverton.com, which was a Drupal-based site. They took out my content and put in a link to a virus. (I have since removed the entire site.)
Using the password from my website, they proceeded to take over my Facebook and Hotmail accounts, and changed the passwords. On Facebook, they deleted all of my picture albums and put pornographic images on my profile. When Amy posted a comment on my wall to warn others that my account had been hacked, the hacker began sending her inappropriate messages.
On Hotmail, they began sending messages to everyone on my contact list telling them to visit my site, where the link to the virus was. They also started deleting my emails (more than 600 of them).
Thankfully, when I got home I was able to quickly get back into my accounts through password recovery options and clear out the garbage that had been posted. I don’t believe anything inappropriate was on my profile for more than 40 minutes or so, though it did take Facebook awhile to cycle the updates out of their news feeds.
The obvious, immediate question is why would someone do something like this? What’s the point of hacking into someone’s accounts and posting inappropriate content? There may be a number of reasons, including total depravity. But there is one particular reason that was given by the hacker. They left me a note in my hotmail account. Among other things it said, the hacker called me a “stupid f**ing religious faggot.”
So as best as I can tell, the motivation for all of this is that I am an outspoken Christian. When I read that, I immediately thought of the promise that we would be persecuted because of Christ, and I take great joy in that. I have many shortcomings, and there are times I wonder about the quality of my witness. But apparently there are those in the world who have identified me with Christ and one person in particular who decided to take their hatred of Him out on me.
I have lost my website (a site I was never satisfied with), my Facebook photo albums, 3 or 4 Facebook friends, a pile of email I probably didn’t need and a few hours of sorting through the damage. All in all, it could have been much worse. Those things can be dismissed and/or replaced. What I have gained is of great value- a better understanding of the importance of web security, and (more importantly) a deeper sense of joy in my affiliation with Jesus the Christ.
PS- If you run a Drupal based website, take extra care to protect your password files.
