IMPORTANT: Password security

I have reason to suspect that someone is trying to hack passwords on the forum. There have been a significant number of failed password attempts recently, in some cases for accounts that haven’t been used for well over a year.

I would advise anyone with a simple password to update it as soon as possible. Good passwords should have the following characteristics:

  • At least 8 characters long
  • At least one upper case character
  • At least one lower case character
  • At least one number
  • At least one special character, e.g. $#@+, etc

The attack seems to be from multiple sources, although I’m pretty sure that the IP addresses are being spoofed so it’s not possible to confirm that or find out where the attack is coming from. The spoofing also means that it’s not possible to stop the attack by blocking an IP address or two :frowning:

I’ve implemented some additional security measures on the forum (and server) to try to mitigate this problem. There is a very slight possibility that you come across one of these measures as you use the forum, e.g. an Access Denied page. If you do, please let me know (by email to admin {at} weather-watch.com if you can’t get into the forum) so that I can try to find a way to resolve your problem.