Model Ship World attacked by hackers

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

Believe you me Sir! I have a lot of written documentation of this.

and so do i but that is not the issue here it is about the people not the organization

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

If you're new to NRG specifically, their journal and research programs have a solid reputation that's largely separate from whatever forum politics happened on MSW.

NRG and MSW are or were one in the same

 

[Jimsky]

I really hope this thread becomes about mourning all the loss of that wealth of information we just lost as a community and moving forward rather than airing past grudges and reopening old wounds.

Well said, CLB. In fact, I was one of those who got banned from MSW, so I understand how easy it is for old frustrations to resurface... but I fully agree that this isn’t the moment for that. What we’ve lost as a community is far bigger than any individual grievance.

Rather than revisiting past conflicts, I think we should focus on what we can do going forward. As an established and knowledgeable group, we’re in a good position to help preserve, rebuild, and share what we can, whether that’s knowledge, plans, techniques, or simply supporting each other. If we keep the focus on that, something positive can still come out of this.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

At its heart, the “now is the time for all good men” quote is a manifesto for proactive citizenship and moral courage. It contains three critical components: urgency (“now is the time”), identity (“all good men”), and action (“to come to the aid of their party”). The word “party” can be interpreted broadly—not just as a political faction, but as one’s community, nation, principle, or even the greater good. The quote argues that goodness is not passive; it is defined by the willingness to act when action is most needed. It challenges individuals to move beyond private virtue to public service, especially during crises or pivotal moments. In every era, the essence of this message finds relevance, reminding us that procrastination in the face of injustice or need is a failure of character. The true meaning of the “now is the time for all good men” quote is that history is shaped not by those who merely witness events, but by those who step forward to shape them at the decisive hour.

 

[archjofo]

I have suffered a very significant loss through the MSW outage – my entire La Créole build log going back to 2013 has disappeared.

At the same time, I want to say that I was always treated fairly at MSW. I am genuinely sorry that some members here had negative experiences or were even banned.

Since 2021 I have also been active at SOS, and I have always felt welcome and well integrated in both communities. Both forums have contributed greatly to my development as a model builder, and the exchange in each place has been valuable to me.

In light of what has happened, I believe this is not the moment to look back or reopen old issues. As others have said, what we have lost as a community is far greater than any individual grievance .

Let us stand together, support a fresh start, and improve whatever may not have worked perfectly in the past. Only by working together can we recover as much as possible from this loss.

 

[Martes]

I guess we don't yet grasp the extent of lost research threads and information.

 

[Peter Schaap]

A lot of English text for a simple Dutchy….
And for me as a newbie, are we safe on SOS?
Do we have a regular backup?

 

[zoly99sask]

A lot of English text for a simple Dutchy….
And for me as a newbie, are we safe on SOS?
Do we have a regular backup?

Yes we are safe

 

[Peter Schaap]

Great! What a relief

 

[zoly99sask]

Great! What a relief

But we are going to take extra measures soon

 

[mberg]

A lot of English text for a simple Dutchy….
And for me as a newbie, are we safe on SOS?
Do we have a regular backup?

THe same thing could happen on SOS, so yes, always backup your data.

 

[mberg]

ran an AI search asking whether the below statement published by MSW and The Nautical Research Guild was true:

In the last three days, there has been a global issue regarding the software that operates computer servers. This has impacted websites and servers around the world. An unscrupulous group of hackers had found a way around server security and had broken into many servers, destroying data.

Outages are tracked by a number of outage tracking services worldwide because information about "global issues" regarding server hacking is critical information for platform administrators everywhere. When any significant security breaches occur, they are immediately reported and likely become big news. This would certainly have triggered an AI response confirming some sort of "global" hacking event. Instead, I received the following response:



Recent Global Server Software Issue — What’s Happening

There is no confirmed report of a global server software security breach in the last three days that has been widely documented by major outage tracking sources. While there have been widespread internet outages in recent weeks, these have been attributed to network infrastructure failures, transit provider issues, and internal service problems, not to a coordinated hack that bypassed server security Network World+1.

• Cloudflare Outage (Nov 18, 2025): A major outage affected many websites and platforms, including X, ChatGPT, Amazon, Spotify, Zoom, Uber, and Azure. Cloudflare blamed it on a spike in unusual traffic that caused a configuration file to grow beyond expected size, triggering a crash in its traffic management system. They stressed there was no evidence of malicious activity Ars Technica.
• Hurricane Electric & Cogent Outages (Jan 2–31, 2026): These were network transit provider outages affecting multiple regions. For example, Hurricane Electric’s Los Angeles nodes went down for about an hour, impacting downstream partners in the U.S., Asia, and Europe Network World.
• Ongoing Outage Tracking: Platforms like ThousandEyes and Entireweb Status show real-time maps of global internet health, but no recent “server security breach” event has been flagged as the cause of these disruptions ThousandEyes+1.
• Outages ≠ Security Breach: Many large-scale outages are due to technical failures, configuration errors, or transit provider issues, not hacker exploits.
• No Evidence of Hack: In the Cloudflare case, the company explicitly stated there was no evidence of malicious activity Ars Technica.
• Security Breaches Are Different: If a server security breach had occurred, it would typically be reported by security firms, ISPs, or cloud providers, and would involve specific indicators like unauthorized access or data exfiltration.

Bottom line: The recent global server-related issues have been network and service outages, not a confirmed hack. If you are seeing widespread website failures, it’s more likely due to infrastructure or configuration problems than a coordinated security breach. For the most accurate, real-time updates, check live outage maps from ThousandEyes or Cloudflare Radar.

Hackers are actively exploiting a bug in cPanel, used by millions of websites | TechCrunch

Web hosts are scrambling to fix the bug under active attack by hackers. One company said hackers have been abusing the bug for months.

techcrunch.com