If any of our readers tried to visit our website today, they were met with a “Page 404” error. Unfortunately, we were the victim of a malicious cyber attack. The hacker took down everything we had posted since the website’s inception and locked us out of our admin account. I was lucky enough to speak to a representative who was able to transfer the account back to me, but the damage was done.

I’m doing my best to restore every article that was available to read on our website, but it’s been far more difficult than I’d anticipated. It seems some of the data was corrupted, so it’s not simply a matter of posting them back on here. We do have a database (well, an Excel spreadsheet) that lists the name of every article, the name of the author, and the date and time it was posted. This has been an invaluable tool for me as I try to reverse the vandalism done by the hacker.

I think this situation has given me a wake-up call about backing everything up on a physical server that can’t be accessed remotely. From now on, all articles will be forwarded to me for preservation on that server, and I will post them on the site from my admin account. This is because I have removed every other account that had permission to post here, as it was through one such account that the hacker was able to gain control of the website.

New content will continue to be posted as usual. I only ask for your patience when it comes to restoring anything from prior to this date. I shall do my best to get everything back where it was and when it was originally posted. If I happen to miss something, I deeply apologize. There are certain articles that are just too corrupted to salvage. I thank you for your continued support, and if you have any questions, or perhaps have a copy of an article saved that you don’t see on the website, please contact me at emersonvalleygazette@gmail.com.

-Charles Donovan, Editor-In-Chief, Emerson Valley Gazette