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As most of you know, Gold Nugget Invest (GNI) and ASA Monitor were attacked by hackers trying to extort about $30,000 from GNI. When Robert refused to pay they tried to bring down GNI using a dirt campaign and posting bad votes on monitors, when this failed they hacked the GNI website and because ASA is the endorsed forum of GNI and Robert was doing such a great job informing the members the hackers then started a DDoS attack on ASA that is still going on at the time of this posting.

Robert has managed to bring back GNI after wiping clean the server and reinstalling the script. And I assume, plugging the hole the hackers used to hack the website with more security.

The latest information from ASA comes from the owner Wanrou:

ASA is under another storm of DDOS. We have moved to a super quick server and have added 2 layers of DDOS protection, blocking many IP from EU and Russia but still can’t stop them. Our hosting didn’t want to waste their time fighting and has pointed our DNS to a government IP. So let those hacker and attacker fight with the government tech army for a while.

Wanrou

We were up for few hours after we moved our server and changed our IP.

Those hacker attack us because ASA is the supporting forum for GNI and I have been working with Robert to track them down.

It was more complicated than a DDOS…… script exploiting, intruding…you name it. A lot of works have been done and are on-going behind the scene to bring ASA back.

Wanrou

GNI members, including myself, received a disturbing email yesterday from an extortionist group that were able to grab data form the GNI database. Members are worried and with good reason.

But the hack seems to have been a simple MySQL injection in my point of view as the accounts were not messed with. I never panicked and told others to not do so, as Robert would take care of the problem as soon as he woke up. And he did. Here is his email newsletter concerning the matter.

You may have received a malicious spam email in the last couple of hours, claiming to be from a team acting against spreading of various Ponzi schemes. They state that they used the vulnerability of mysql and broke into our database.

They are also reporting that they haven’t found any trading activity with our script – what is by the way true, since the script is nothing more than a front end for our members and us as well, to manage and calculate your funds . Furthermore they are warning that our website will be closed in the near future, if not by us, by the senders group. And of course the obvious bla bla that you should withdraw you funds with us – and surprise surprise, they added three email addresses you may contact to receive information where to invest you money safely smile.gif

This is the really important fact of this SPAM email – thats what it is!

It tells us that the only intention of the sender is to disturb our operation and to grab you intention to another investment program, which is for sure a PONZI scheme, since no serious entity is using the means of SPAM to get your intention.

GNI is operating for almost three years, is as you know a legally registered corporation and has proven over the time again and again that we are a serious and reliable second income opportunity.

There is absolutely no need to panic and nothing and NOBODY will shut us down, not as long as I am in charge of this operation. Since we went public last year we have been attacked, threatened and blackmailed on a weekly base. The last email we’ve received last Friday and the blackmailer tried to extort $20,000 from us. Most probably the email you have received is a result of this extortioner.

This is the downside of such an operation! Our only aim is and was to generate a second income for you, our trusted members and thus offering us an business opportunity to support our families as well. As you all know, we are working hard to achieve this goal and have always sorted out any obstacles along the way. And so we will do again – today as well as tomorrow!

We are currently investigating how this SPAMMER got access to our database and assure you that we will take all necessary steps to protect our members privacy and integrity, what unfortunately is not a simple task, in times where even government databases get compromised. We can however confirm that the database has not been altered.

I don’t want to hide the fact that quite some of our esteemed members panicked and requested a withdrawal of their principal, as a result of this SPAM email, what is understandable, since you don’t know what is going on. We have decided to sent all withdrawal requests back to our members account balances, giving you the opportunity to reconsider if you like to stay with us – or not, now where I got the chance to address this issue. If you still decide to withdraw your principle, please request it again and note that it might take up to 7 days to process principal withdrawal requests, depending on the availability of funds in our payment processor accounts. This is according to our TOS. We will process withdrawals again in the evening hours today (GMT timezone).

Finally let me express my warmest gratefulness to those member who expressed their support of GNI and are believing in our project. I have received many encouraging emails from trusted members. THANK YOU ALL!

With best regards,
Robert and TEAM

One more note:

We are only processing withdrawals to Payment Processor accounts where the deposit was made from. So there is no way that someone can withdraw any of our members funds!

Update:

Several days ago Todd, GNI’s support, told us some great news was coming soon, he even had the members guessing. But since the hack, we were told that the surprise was going to be a much better script with much more security in place. This will be much better for the members safety and that of the program.

Robert, the admin of Gold Nugget Invest, posted this today at the ASA Forum:

Yes, there are some issues with STP, but we should give them a break – they are a real great payment processor!

We just posted this information to the News section of our site:

SolidTrust Pay deposits and withdrawal requests July 11th, 2009 18:16

We have noticed this morning that deposits made with SolidTrust Pay has not been credited to our members accounts automatically, neither have we received notification from SolidTrust Pay that payments have been made. This makes it impossible for us to credit our members accounts with the deposits they made. The option to download a csv file on the STP transaction page is also not working at all, this already since STP introduced Phase 1 of their scheduled upgrade and features. Otherwise we could credit these deposits manually. We have already contacted the STP administration and usually they are very helpful and quick in responding to such requests. We believe this interruptions are due to their recent change of servers.

Secondly the STP mass pay system, what we are using to process hundreds of withdrawal requests on each day is not working as well. Therefore we are unable to process STP withdrawals today. We have informed the STP administration about this problem as well and hope it will be sorted out by Monday.

Sorry for any inconenience this might cause!

We hope that we will get documentation about new deposits sometime on Monday, as well as their ‘Masspay’ device to work again properly.

I know this to be true as Solid Trust Pay was offline yesterday for several hours due to maintenance and upgrades.

I joined OnisGroup recently, as well as Infinitiva, which I reviewed here, and will do a review on them as soon as I can.

Gold Nugget Invest

Many members have been asking what’s going on with the Weekly Fixed Rollover plan. Todd, GNI’s support, has just explained that in a recent forum post.

FIRST THINGS FIRST.

WE’RE HAVING PROBLEMS WITH THE SCRIPT, AS A RESULT THE ROLLOVER PLAN DIDN’T PAY YESTERDAY. WE’RE AWARE OF IT AND ARE TAKING PROACTIVE MEASURES TO CORRECT IT. NO NEED TO SEND A TICKET 0R EMAIL

THANK YOU!!

Ad-Ventures 4U

Steve, the admin of Ad-Ventures 4U, sent an update today reporting on the progress with the script. His programmer had this to report:

Ventrino LTE Script Update

Hi Steve, I thought I would give you an update on progress. You have probably noticed performance on your current script has improved over the last couple of days too. This because I have implement changes to the indexing by moving over code from the new script. The framework is in place and the new tools page is ready. This incorporates messages from the members upline and twitter. Members will be able to speak directly to the downline members without using email (thus avoiding spam complaints). They will see a list of people searching for ways to make money on twitter and can send them a link with their referral ID. Attached is a short video that demonstrates how that works. The XSS protection code is now in place and I’m confident we can block all known methods – of course that’s not a guarantee that someone somewhere will find a new method but will give excellent protection until then! Dave will start on you red design later this week, I have told him to keep it red and to remove the cartoony effects and go for real photos thus giving it a more serious business look.

Programs that paid me today: Gold Nugget Invest, Nano Money Corp, PanaMoney

Gold Nugget Invest continues to be the pillar of my portfolio. This has been the greatest program I have ever been in. Today, before taking his weekend break, we heard from Robert. Apparently he is a Michael Jackson fan. Since everyone is talking about Michael Jackson I decided to post his comments here:

Guys, I am glad that everything is fine here [at the GNI thread at the ASA Forum] and that everyone is happy. This makes us very happy indeed and we will have a good weekend.

I have looked through the posts of the day but found nothing I need to answer – everything was already taken care of, thank you all! (If I have overseen something please be so kind and remind me on Monday…)

What else to say?

Oh yes, that is completely off topic but it touched me and it touched me a lot:

The death of Michael Jackson!

Without thinking about the negative side of his life – if it was true or not, we might never know……but he was a legend! I grew up with his music (I am two years younger) and I loved the Jackson 5, although I am more a Pink Floyd, Stones, Soul and Marley (and Reggae in general) fan – but his music was part (and still IS) part of my life! I’ve got the privilege to saw him twice on stage, the thriller tour and later at the end of the eighties again and he was just a GREAT singer, dancer, entertainer and songwriter: Just imagine, he gave us (together with Lionel Richie) “We are the world” – one of my all time favorites!

What I want to say is, let’s please think about him a moment – if you’d liked him or not! – I was working late Thursday night and as always switched to the ‘Situation Room’ on CNN before I go to bed and at that time Wolf Blitzer started to report about the story and that Jacko was brought to hospital etc…. I was sitting half the night in front of my TV and followed the story and I must admit – I got tears in my eyes when his dead was finally confirmed…. It was a bad day of my life, I must admit!

Whatever you are up to this weekend, if you swap to VH1 or MTV – they play his music all day, please just take a moment and listen….

A great weekend to all of you and as of Monday we are back to business as usual: WE BET – YOU WIN!

Take care.

Gold Nugget Invest continues to be my number program at the moment. This one seems rock solid for now.

Here are just a few questions asked on the ASA forum of Todd from support and his answers:

Guaranteed or Risk Free

What does GNI mean when they state risk free?

This question seems to go around and around….I’m going to let Robert answer the finite details, but let’s get something clear. Risk-free and guaranteed are not synonymous; at all.

Arbitrage trading, by definition is Risk-free. The returns, having laid stakes on both sides of the wager are known before during and after the event transpires, hence “risk-free.”

Guaranteed payments implies that the client/customer is paid whether a nuclear bomb detonates, the world comes to end or otherwise. The source of said funds guaranteeing payouts could be by GNI’s operating funds, reserve funds and/or contributions from the organizations principals, partners or otherwise.

The only time, however, that such extraordinary measures to make payments to our trusted investors is in the event an event such as one I described (breakdown in market conditions, etc…) actually comes to fruition. Keep in mind adverse economic conditions is often a catalyst to the sports wagering sector of any given economy.

I hope this helps clear up some definitions as we see them at GNI….

Email Support Issues

Due to GNI’s scripting and security measures, members who don’t use GMail sometimes do not receive email from the script. This is a problem for those who are emailed a new automatic log-in PIN after their IP has changed and can’t receive them, causing an excessive amount of support issues. Todd has recently stated that now you need a GMail address to register for an account.

It seems the GMail service is more forgiving of the type of email GNI’s script sends out.

Finally had the good sense to change the sign-up requirements mandating the use of gmail as a condition of enrollment. If I had done this after propagating the new servers I could have saved responding to 700 or 800 service requests, not to mention all of the unnecessary frustration you good people have had to endure….

Sometimes i feel like I’m a few cards short of a full deck, I tell ya….

Onward…