Sorting out an old vB 2 installation which has been hacked, and upgrading

[ummahforums]

I had a really old vB 2 installation on another site I maintain which I neglected to upgrade. The forum has been active - and has now been hacked (well, cracked). The hackers have locked out the real admins and seem to have set up their own administration via a back door. Anyway, I took the whole site offline before they could do any damage and reset the mySQL password.

The license for the vBulletin installation is up-to-date, so I can upgrade to the latest vB 3. But before I do that I need to clean out the hackers' damage - so what do I need to watch out for?

I'm thinking of just exporting threads/posts/users and importing them into a fresh vB 3 installation - is that possible? What's the best way forward?

[Steve Machol]

Look at the Admin, Super Mod and Mod users and make sure you have verified these are valid with the correct email address.

Then what I would do is install 3.0.7, then use the Impex import system to import the vB2 data.

[ummahforums]

Many thanks for the prompt reply I'll start working on it

[BlueFlame]

Wouldnt Install use an upgrade script on an existing 2.xx series. Just a thought

[ummahforums]

I'm not sure how much damage has been done to the database so I'd rather not just upgrade... I'd like to have as fresh an installation as possible

[Reaktor7]

i would upgrade via impex. it will impport your users and everythign for you.. and you will have to redo your stats but thats no biggy.

Really, if you were using the latest versions of vb i would doubt people could make such serious changes. I would start off by changing ftp/mysql/cpanel passwords.. making sure there are no lurking ftp accounts (once they have an ftp account, they can look at your files regardless if you have restricted them to a directory or not)