Site Hacked message received

Hi, I received this message on my forum this morning. I wasn't sure where to post it but wanted to share it with forumotion. Has this been happening to other forumotion members? Is there any action I should take? Thanks


Subject: [Contact] Your Website Has Been Compromised
Your Site Has Been Hacked

PLEASE FORWARD THiS EMAiL TO SOMEONE iN YOUR COMPANY WHO iS ALLOWED TO MAKE iMPORTANT DECiSiONS!

We have hacked your website quilterslastresort.com and extracted your databases.

How did this happen?

Our team has found a vulnerability within your site that we were able to exploit. After finding the vulnerability we were able to get your database credentials and extract your entire database and move the information to an offshore server.

What does this mean?

We will systematically go through a series of steps of totally damaging your reputation. First your database will be leaked or sold to the highest bidder which they will use with whatever their intentions are. Next if there are e-mails found they will be e-mailed that their information has been sold or leaked and your site quilterslastresort.com was at fault thusly damaging your reputation and having angry customers/associates with whatever angry customers/associates do. Lastly any links that you have indexed in the search engines will be de-indexed based off of blackhat techniques that we used in the past to de-index our targets.

How do i stop this?

We are willing to refrain from going through with these actions for a small fee. The amount: $3500 (0.15 BTC)

The Address Part 1: bc1qevg9dq38z0ez6ql7c

The Address Part 2: qrzr879jzls3u978caqts

So, you have to manually copy + paste Part1 and Part2 in one string made of 42 characters with no space between parts that start with "b" and end with "s" is, the actually address where you should send the payment. Once you have paid we will automatically get informed that it was your payment. Please note that you have to make payment within 72 hours after seeing this message or the database leak, e-mails dispatched, and de-index of your site WiLL start!

How do i get Bitcoins?

You can easily buy bitcoins via several websites or even offline from a Bitcoin-ATM.

What if i don’t pay?

if you decide not to pay, we will start the attack at the indicated date and uphold it until you do, there’s no counter measure to this, you will only end up wasting more money trying to find a solution. We will completely destroy your reputation amongst google and your customers.

This is not a hoax, do not reply to this email, don’t try to reason or negotiate, we will not read any replies. Once you have paid we will stop what we were doing and you will never hear from us again!

Please note that Bitcoin is anonymous and no one will find out that you have complied. Finally don't reply as this email is unmonitored.

Sender e-mail address: hacker@heroofhelvetia.ch

Hi Thank you for your Report.

This is not real and nothing to worry about we had one of them sent to me by PM once and it was nothing they try and get money out of you it's scam.

My advice is if you are worried about your forum admin account i would change your Email address and your password as well.

NOTES:
Never give your Email address of your founders account on your forum.
Never send Emails to your members using your founders email address.
Never give your Password to anyone not even your staff members of your forum as this is not safe.
When making any change to your founders account please make sure you change the Forum Utilities as well.

REMEMBER: If they wanted to hack your forum they would have already done so they would not send a Email or PM to you telling you they will do it they would have already done it then asked for money to get it back.

Like APE stated above, if they wanted to hack you why warn you? It's a scam, delete the email or message, make a back up of your forum, if your afraid, so if anything, you can load your forum back up.

see link below for instructions.
https://help.forumotion.com/t9692-the-utilities-backup-and-restore?highlight=Restore

Thanks Ape, I was going to ignore it but then thought I should perhaps just double check here and let you know what I received.

To change the Admin email address, that will not effect the original founding email information in case I ever lose the password will it? Are there specific steps to changing the Admin email that are different to regular members changing the email?

Thanks BlackScorpion I will look into doing a backup, I keep a contact list for the bulk of the members so will check thats current too.

Thanks

yep always safe to keep a back up anyway, one never knows what can happen. If this is solved,update the post to reflect it. Thanks.

Thanks

When you change your founders account email address you will need to change the Forum Utilities as well then on our system it will change too. so if you have any problems you would give us your new Email address not the old one. if we have a problem with the new one we may ask you for the old one.

My advice is if you do change the Email address and password and you need help send us both the old and new one to be safe than sorry.

SORRY FOR THE LATE REPLY.

I have spoken to our team and they say this is just a scam and nothing to worry about your forum is safe.