This site was hacked a few months ago, because of a well-known vulnerability in WordPress. Don't worry, though – the hack was harmless to visitors.

So why didn't I just keep WordPress up to date?  Well, because my WordPress super-theme management system,  SemioLogic Pro, had a bug (might be a feature) that prevented me from easily updating my installation to the latest version of WordPress, so I got hacked. No matter how good your desktop / PC security is, your web site is even more vulnerable for an entirely different set of reasons – including how much open source (and even expensive) programmers (like WordPress and SemioLogic) know about security and how quickly they learn it and how well I pay attention to ongoing maintenance requirements – which seem to be very high with WordPress and SemioLogic.  No such thing as set it and forget it.

Lesson learned.

Thanks, though, to Denis de Bernardy for letting me access his SemioLogic site again to get updated code so I could fix the problem and recover my site.

The temptation was apparently too great for QahTaN-SniPer, a Saudi Arabian hacker, who hacked into our site and replaced our home page with Islamic propaganda. Now, I have no personal problem or quarrel with Islam. I respect their beliefs as well as I respect their right to hold those beliefs. I even own a copy of the Koran, which I consider God's word given to the descendants of Ishmael.

But I do have a problem with the coercive means adopted by any believer of any religion that adopts means patently harmful to others in order to promote its beliefs. So to QahTaN-SniPer: you are not helping your cause – you are hurting it.  Is Islam the religion of peace or not?  I have no fight with you, so why did you choose to attack me?  What kind of religious beliefs motivate someone to reach out and hurt innocent people in foreign countries?  It's just hard to fathom…

Enough said, I hope.

WordPress hacked SemioLogicPro