Weird.
Since I posted my last blog ten days ago, (Congressman Murphy Throw Me a Bone) my email Inbox has been inundated with constant warnings that someone had tried and failed to log into my website. Thousands of warnings. My email was so clogged, I could barely pick out legitimate emails. I was so overwhelmed with the same Securi Alert Failed Login warning scrolling down my computer screen, I almost started to miss all the good old-fashioned spam emails, most of which automatically get scuttled away to a spam folder that I barely notice anymore.
My first thought was, “why would someone want to hack my website?” I have no power, money, and only whisper-thin influence over anyone, especially my running companion, Sparky, who exercises complete control over our running pace and time, depending on how often he wants to stop, sniff, pee and poop on the side of the trail.
My second thought was really over-the-top, grassy knoll, All the President’ Men, conspiracy theory crazy.
“What if it’s political?”
You see, my last blog post, the one that, according to suspicious timing, seems to have possibly instigated this series of brute force attacks, contained a mild political rant directed at U.S. Congressman Tim Murphy. It wasn’t bad, hateful or insulting, at all. In fact, it barely qualifies as a rant as it only contained my trademark, slightly sardonic commentary, which I think is always respectful and well-meaning, but which occasionally makes my husband roll his eyes.
My husband, of course, insisted that no person was trying to hack my website. He said it had to be a computer that was programmed to lock onto someone’s website and spit out a whole series of digital login guesses, which, if successful, would open up a whole new world of phishing and malware to anyone who doesn’t know what a “strong” password is.
Then yesterday, as I was ruminating about writing about these weird Securi Alert hacking attempts, I posted this message on Facebook and Twitter:
Interesting that ever since I posted my last blog, my website has been under brute force attack. So I’m going to blog about it tomorrow.
So here’s the weirdest thing of all. The hacking attempts stopped. Completely. Today, I haven’t gotten a single email warning.
I know it’s probably a big, fat, giant coincidence. Nobody is cyber-watching me and I’m sure Congressman Murphy has no idea that I even mentioned him in my blog ten days ago. There is no reason for anyone to target me or my website for any reason other than the fact that I have a website, which, by the way, is protected by a long, strong password that pushes me to the limit of my memorization skills.
But if somebody out there has anything they want to say to me, stop lurking and cyber-stalking me. Just come out some morning to the trail and talk to me in person. I’m the one with the dog who sniffs and pees a lot.