Nairaland comes back online after hacking attempt

Nigeria's biggest online Forum is back online after a few days of being shut down. Nairaland has been online after about 3 to 5 days of being shut down due to a hacking attempt.

As at the 24th of June 2014, visitors to Nairaland were disappointed when the web page returned a web server error 522 which did not offer them access to the websites.

Last time I checked, Nairaland had over 1 million members and also a lot of visitors who come from search engines and so it was not encouraging for visitors who either seek for relevant information online or seek to interact in the online forum not have access to the website. The site went offline for about 2 to 3 days until it was re-lauched but not in full mode

As at the time Nairaland was relaunched towards the end of June 2014, the owner Seun Osewa posted a confirmatory notice that the website had experienced a hacking attempt and it was still in recovery mode. The statement read "Nairaland is trying to recover from an attack that led to data loss. Please bear with us". Then, people were allowed to browse through Nairaland and be able to see information on discussions already made but it was in read mode only meaning that members were unable to comment or make new posts except for the Nairaland owner who posted some updates. Now, members can make comments as well as make new posts.

I also noticed that some web pages on Nairaland had been lost afte following some links on Google search and this normally redirects to the home page as a default. As at the time of writing this post, Nairaland has lost some web pages and thsoe may be restored later on if a backup copy of it has been made. For missing web pages on Nairaland, visitors would for now be redirected to the home page.

There are also concerns that some membership accounts might have been compromised or deleted as a result of the hacking attempt which Nairaland survived. It seems the website admin or host made a back up copy that is now being used to restore the website. However, Nairaland has lost some old posts and comments.

The big question now to Nigerian website owners is: What is the fate of smaller website owners if large websites like Nairaland could be hacked and lose some content?