Greetings and Salutations -

We use the domain BellaOnline.US to store graphic images for our sites. It's an easy way for editors to add illustrations their articles. We recently had an issue with that BellaOnline.US domain which has just been fixed.

What apparently happened was, sometime back in 2013, a hacker altered a few files in directories we don't use. We never noticed it. Then ten days ago Globat (the host for that domain) ran an automated sweep for viruses and found those files. So they deactivated our account without telling us :). It was the sharp eyes of several editors who spotted the issue. And then it took some back and forth with Globat to get it resolved.

Globat's only guess as to how the hackers got in is that the hackers figured out an editor's FTP password. So they want us to change all of our passwords. FTP passwords need to be six or more characters long, have at least one letter, one number, and one punctuation character. If you are using the graphics server, please send me a new password you'd like that meets those requirements and I'll make that change for you!

If you don't have a graphic server account yet and would like one, let me know that and I'd be quite happy to set one up. It's easy to use FTP, it's a good skill to know, and it allows you to easily add helpful images to your articles.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Sincerely,

Lisa Shea, owner
BellaOnline.com

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