Self Created Admin Demoted Everyone

Hello all!  I didn't quite know where to post this, so I thought right here would do.  On a forum I'm part of, I'm a Moderator and something bad happened.  A hacker of sorts made a brand new account, made himself an admin somehow, and demoted all other admins.  The founder will not be online for a while and I do not know the next time she will be online.  She was thinking of leaving the site, so I'm not sure we will get help from her.  He has hacked the site before, but we had the founder to help us those times.  I really need your help to know how to get rid of this guy.  This guy also changes names to inappropriate words and he posts very bad things.  Can anyone help?

Site: http://www.bearvilleboulevard.com

Hi @YizelScorpio,

Normally when something like this occurs, it's an inside job. As far as I know, no one but the administration team can make someone an Admin. For example, someone on your Administration team could have made another account and raised it to admin status simply for amusement.

As for solving the situation, you would need the founder to either restore the forum as it was via the utils, or if you have other staff with rights still, restore your administration status. When giving people this power, be sure that you can trust them.

Luckily, the problem was fixed, but it could happen again.  From what I know, no one promoted this guy.  Yet, this person found a way in.  Other comments and helpful tips are highly appreciated.

Well the only other way is by hacking the FM server (VERY VERY HARD to do) or through the direct link to the acp.

I would recommend checking through your administrative logs, anything done by an administrator will be documented there. I would also recommend that you enable the security setting 'Confirm login information before administrating the forum' to prevent anyone who is not authorized to be in the acp will not be able to, using the direct acp link.

-Brandon

The forum can not be hacked.  The only thing that can be hacked is accounts.  Could it be that an administrator exactly gave his/hers account to someone?

SLGray wrote:The forum can not be hacked.  The only thing that can be hacked is accounts.  Could it be that an administrator exactly gave his/hers account to someone?

None of the administrators gave away any passwords.  It was 3-4 months since the last time the person tried hacking the forum, so I think Brandon may be on to something about him hacking the FM server.  In a matter of speaking, this forum is very good about never sharing any passwords or personal information.  Of course, there could be loopholes of sorts.  The admins complained about there being an 'invisible admin' that was demoting everyone.  At this time, all admins were online and the founder was not logged into at all.  This is why I am so confused about all of this.  Either there is a way to create an account that is not visible to admins, or something else happened.

What I meant by hacking the server was that it is damn near impossible, it was defintely inside job or he hacked an account on the forum, whether the admin gave him the password or not, if he managed to figure out the password (which is what hackers do) then he can gain access to the account. As I said, check your administrative logs.

-Brandon

Please read these:

https://help.forumotion.com/t11386-forumotion-maximum-security-for-your-forums

https://help.forumotion.com/t51-internet-security-on-your-forum-habits-to-be-avoided

https://help.forumotion.com/t75418-my-forum-was-hacked

https://help.forumotion.com/t60088-i-ve-received-a-message-from-forumotion-is-it-true