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Being A Hacking Victim Is Not Always Caused By The Blog Owner

Even though being the victim of a hacking attack is not (always) the fault of the account / blog owner, the blog owner may have to bear some of the responsibility.

Since hacking detection is a fuzzy process, it's not always going to be detected immediately. The previous article discusses what happens when Google does detect a hacking attack - and in some cases reacts too diligently.

If Google is not able to detect an attack, in some cases, an attack may be successful.

With some blogs, that are not updated frequently, a hacker may take control, and successfully hijack a blog.

Occasionally we see another report
I just discovered that my blog contains spam - and I can't access the dashboard, to clean the blog!
This may well be a successfully hijacked blog, discovered too late.

In other cases the complaint will be different.
I had to change my password - and having changed my password, my blog was deleted!

The former report may also represent another devious attempt to steal control of somebody's blog - or a frustrated blog owner, attempting to regain access, to his own blog. Blogger Support cannot, reliably, support hacking recovery, on an individual basis.

The latter report, oddly enough, may also represent a hacked blog - but Google detected the hacking, and the blog is now offline, while Blogger examines it for successful hacking.

From what I can tell, Blogger / Google is working on the larger picture - making the automated detection process more reliable. Given this concern, Blogger / Google won't be frequently available to diagnose and return control of individual hijacked blogs - even when the issue is righteous.

In general, blog owners have to support themselves, and learn how to protect themselves. This may be yet one more reason why 2-Step Verification is becoming less optional.

Comments

Unknown said…
its cool dude thanks
:)

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