Hackers, please go after somebody important and leave me alone

Some of you have heard about how I won my first website in an eBay auction. I thought it was really cool that I owned a website of my very own. It was so easy, I decided to get some more and really feel important. Within a couple of months I had 94 web sites and I was really impressed with myself.

I figured I could make them even better by adding eBay auctions and Google search bars. So I joined some website advice forums and sites and began asking questions and learning something about code and placement. It started out good, but it got rather tedious when you consider I was doing it in my spare time, then multiply by 94. After that I started updating some of the articles on my sites and each site has from 10 to 40 articles in the database, depending on the site. So you can see I was and still am busy.

I write articles, regularly, to post on my blog so it doesn’t get boring for you. I also publish those articles in over one hundred article directories, one by one. By doing this I get additional visitors to my site who hopefully click on the ads and help me make a few cents. I also post to Blogger and Squidoo and some others, all in the interest of getting traffic to my site. Naturally I have to update, revise and backup on a regular basis as well and it all takes time.

Now, my goal from the beginning was to make a little cash on the side while providing information to folks like you. In order to do that I had to get accounts with Google Adsense, eBay Partnership and Amazon affiliates. Then I had to go through my 94 sites and put in the appropriate codes to make sure I got paid and not the guy who developed the sites.

What I’m getting at is this; I’ve put a lot of work into my sites. Then some jerk, I don’t even know, decides that he doesn’t like me and hacks my sites. In fact in the last four months I’ve been hacked six times. Just this past week I was hacked four times. Each time I am able to quickly recover because I’ve learned where to look for the hacked files. Additionally, I quickly contact my hosting company who scans all my files for malicious script and deletes it. Then they give me advice on how to prevent future attacks. The problem is that they only provide one piece of information at a time rather than a list of actions I should take. The one question my hosting company has never answered, even though I asked it all six times, is; How? How are the hackers getting in? Don’t they have to get into the host server? Shouldn’t my hosting company be providing some sort of security to protect my sites? I don’t know, but I’m learning some new tricks here and there that I hope will help.

From the writing on the hacked pages, I know that the people who are doing this speak Arabic. At least one has said what country he/she is from. The thing is, that other than to be mean, there is no reason to hack my sites. I don’t have any top secret information there. I don’t have anyone’s personal banking information there. I don’t even collect contact information from my visitors. I’m just trying to have a little fun and make a few pennies here and there. If they think they are going to wear me down and I’ll give up my sites, then they are nuts. Aside from all the work it takes to monitor and update 94 sites, I’m enjoying what I’m doing.

So “hackers”, go after somebody important and leave me alone.  Go hack somebody that has done you harm, not me. I’m just trying to raise a family and make a living just like you.