Two days after Tea Party Wire was hacked and two days before the popular social networking site Twitter’s users were re-directed to porn and other third-party websites, Write On New Jersey suffered its first significant hack attack.  On Sunday, September 19^th, a hacker gained access to the Site’s ad server and began an assault that ultimately placed malicious code into ads proliferating across the site.  The code prompted Google to issue a warning that the Site “might be harmful to your computer” in its search results later Sunday and into Monday.  Users of some web browsers received warning messages when attempting to reach the Site.

Upon discovery, the Site’s management and webhost took immediate action to eliminate any malicious code from the Site.  The ad server was shutdown and other security measures taken.  By later in the day Monday, all malicious code was eliminated, and by early Tuesday morning, Google had reviewed the Site and removed the warning from search results leading to the Site.

For website owners and webmasters of sites rapidly rising in web stature and popularity, the message is clear:  you are being targeted by those with evil intent.  Whether for sport or personal gain, hackers lurk in every corner of the Web and will wreak havoc on your site – in most cases, with impunity.  And, depending upon the nature of your site, the consequences can be devastating.  In the recent attack on Write On New Jersey, web traffic to the Site was reduced by more than 90% during the period when Google’s warning was in place.

The only thing that webmasters can do to prevent such occurrences is to establish robust security protocols and make sure their sites are updated with the latest software releases and security patches.  Despite their best efforts, however, hackers can and will, on occasion, breach website security.  While hackers are a comparatively new phenomenon, the world has and always will – until its ultimate demise – know evil doers.  As stated in John 3:19, “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”  We can only pray that the evil done will result in temporal as well as eternal condemnation.