Not sure if I sould ask but....

[MauriceMynah]

No Lozibear, that's not quite how it works. You should be perfectly safe as long as all your "anti nasties" software is up to date.

The reason the NBF was hit by several sources at once can be explained by the method of those attacks.

Rather like the phishing spam mails we all suffer from, they use certain scams at certain times. We will receive a batch all claiming to be from a bank, then after a pause we get a batch from a solicitor in the middle east, and again after a while we find we are beneficiaries of a will in the USA. Then its back to the banks.

Hackers work in the same general way. they try to find a way in. A weakness in the sites coding. it fails so they try another. Each time they try, they are tweeking their programs. They are all working on the same principles and they are all doing this all the time. It's not surprising then that several people try the same thing in fairly quick succession.

So why do they do it? Well as Alexander Meercat would say, "Simples" they get paid to do it.

The original hacker would have found the weakness in the coding, probably on many sites, and sold the list of vulnarable sites ( or the program used to get in) to any number of criminal groups for whatever sum of money. Those groups then get into the site and glean whatever information they can.

It is then necessary for them to vandalise the site to stop other criminal groups getting the same information and taking a cut of anything going. Not a lot of "Honour amungst theives" here !

Now! The NBF sites, don't hold the sorts of information these guys really want. Bank account details etc. but there is an interest in phone numbers if they can be linked to interests, so beware of anybody phoning out of the blue offering some amazing boat cleaning service which can be paid by direct debit of just £2 per month. They might, for example, say that your name was given to them by John the fish (JTF) and that might, just might, be enough to get you to trust them.

Anyway, that's how it works and that's why they do it, or at least one example, there are more!

[ranworthbreeze]

Hello Lori,

JTF is correct in what he says there is always people out there looking for a way into someones system be it a network or a single pc, keep your antivirus up to date and make sure you set it to scan your pc on a regular basis.

Look at for any emails that come in and treat then all with suspicion, after deleting over 1350 emails this morning that came in over the weekend most were the usual rubish and the odd philshing attempt, less than 10 true emails.

As far as I am aware the NBF is now safe to go on, well as safe as any other site.

Regards

Alan

[Guest]

The NBF sites, don't hold the sorts of information these guys really want. Bank account details etc.

The proliferation of forum and social networking sites has now attracted a majority of users who are otherwise computer novices.

As I mentioned earlier on this thread, too many people use a standard ID and password combination for multiple sites, to save having to remember several.

Over the years I've found several of my friends and acquaintances were unaware of the danger.

Forums, Email, Ebay, Amazon, Paypal, all using the same password and ID......