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“Herb, have you checked your website this morning?”

Long before Russian hackers hacked into the DNC and Sidney Blumenthal’s emails to Hillary Clinton, they discovered the strategic importance of New Commandment Men’s Ministries. Maybe Vladimir Putin felt we were a geopolitical threat to his international goals, I don’t know. The CIA hasn’t issued a final report yet (JK). But for some reason back in 2013 NewCommandment.org became, without my knowledge, a primary focal point for all of Russia; a place to communicate, if someone wanted to, with millions of ordinary Russian citizens.

At least that’s what rebels in Azerbaijan thought.

I had never heard of Azerbaijan and its rebels the day I woke up to that 6 am phone call.

“Herb, have you checked your website this morning? You’ll never believe what’s on it!” My friend, who was calling from the east coast, had a sense of urgency in his voice. Like he was telling me I had to check it before I even brushed my teeth. I don’t do anything in the morning before I brush my teeth.

“No, I haven’t,” I responded. Truth be told, I hadn’t checked the website in months. The site wasn’t a primary focus of my ministry. Before I had a website I had known next to nothing about the Internet and how to put a “site” on it. Finally, in desperation, I got my son to help me put one up after the inevitable question at the end of conversations–“You mean you don’t have a website?”–started sounding like, “Why aren’t you wearing any clothes?” It was a basic site. Nothing fancy, more like an Internet version of a business card.

I thanked my friend for the heads up, put down my phone, flipped open my laptop and typed NewCommandment.org into my browser, bad breath and all. When the page loaded, the familiar logo of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet was gone. So was everything else. In their place was a pitch black screen with gigantic red letters:

FREE AZERBAIJAN!

Below the blazing banner was a screed about Russian brutality and oppression and how brave Azerbaijani rebels needed the support of the good people of Russia to free their country next door from corrupt Ruski governmental influence.

I was gobsmacked. Two questions came to my mind.

First of all, how did these rebels do this to my website?

Secondly, who were these crazy Azerbaijani “rebels” anyway and why were they using my tiny website to communicate their message of revolution to people in Russia?

I’ve never learned the answer to the first question, but I soon found out the answer to the second.

Turns out, those Azerbaijani rebels were the second group to hack my website. Prior to them, it had already been secretly hacked by Russian porn peddlers. They needed an isolated website that was never checked for file uploads and downloads. My humble and neglected site met their criteria. (And the fact that it was a Christian site probably gave the jerks a sense of gleeful irony to boot.)

The effect of the Azerbaijani hack was that it motivated me to begin reviewing my online files. Here’s what I discovered: hundreds of pornographic files had been stored on my site in “the cloud” and then were being downloaded from it! I never looked at the files themselves, but the file names betrayed their nature. Most of them were in Russian, but there were enough titles in English to reveal what was in them. Thus, the Azerbaijani hackers had exposed the Russian hackers!

My next shocking discovery was that dozens and dozens of websites ending in .ru (meaning they originated in Russia) had linked to my website. NewCommandment.org had become porn central for Russia’s perverts.

That explained everything. Somehow, the Azerbaijani rebels found out about those Russian links and identified my website as a prime way to communicate to anyone clicking on them from the Motherland.

It took a few hours, but I identified and deleted all the offending files and blocked the IP addresses of Russian websites linking to New Commandment. I also blocked any individuals accessing NewCommandment.org from Russia. Since then I check my website daily for any unauthorized file uploads and downloads, as well as foreign and domestic links that seem inappropriate. Then I block any suspicious activity.

In the process of going through all of this, I’ve learned some important lessons.

1. 1. Change your website credentials frequently and review your website files and visitors’ country of origin at least weekly, preferably daily. Don’t take anything for granted. It would also be wise to utilize a paid security service like Norton or McAfee. I use both.

1. 1. Backup your website. If, like me, a growing percentage of your life’s work is on your website, it’s worth your while to purchase a reputable backup service. I use VaultPress for my WordPress website.

1. 1. The Internet is an extremely powerful tool that everyone in ministry needs to learn to effectively leverage. The whole experience with Azerbaijan and Russia awakened me to the potential of the Internet. I never thought of it the same way again. I realized that I was neglecting it to the detriment of my ministry. I personally think every Christian college and seminary should have a course on how to use the Internet to get your message out.

1. 1. Blog, blog, blog, and then blog some more. I’m speaking especially to national men’s ministry leaders. We need more good men’s ministry bloggers. Be persistent and consistent in your posting and you will be well rewarded for your effort. I’ve been blogging three times a week for less than half a year and over 4,000 people a month read my blog.
      

1. Think twice before immigrating to Russia. If you move to Russia, you’ll never again be able to read my blog at NewCommandment.org. And what kind of life would that be?

This post first appeared at NewCommandent.org.

Have a website and/or a blog? What kind of security issues have you faced?

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