Updates on the attacks, how you can help, and a bit of history
We’re pleased to say we’re well on our way to recovering from the recent cyberattacks that took down the GMWatch website and compromised our X (formerly Twitter) account. Both are currently secure and fully functioning, and we’re busy working away on improving security still further.
We want to thank everyone who contributed to our fighting fund. We’ve been touched by your generosity and heartened by the messages of support that we’ve been receiving. It’s added to our determination to come back stronger than ever.
By the way, if you were thinking of supporting us but haven’t got round to it, please do so! We’re hoping we can raise enough money not just to increase our security on all fronts but to take the fight to the enemy by improving delivery and enhancing our visibility.
Already our website isn’t just back up, but has been redesigned to make it easier to navigate for mobile users. And that’s inspired us to make our newsletters an easier read on mobile devices too. In the same spirit, we’re thinking that if our attackers want to reduce our reach, we should be looking to extend it – see ‘Volunteers wanted’ below.
The pattern of attacks
We’re working with a cybercrime officer and so far it looks like the hacking of our X account may have been a straightforward criminal enterprise – part of an active crypto investment scam (if you follow us on X, see our pinned post about this) that hijacks accounts to try and funnel people through to a Telegram account, a notorious tool for illicit networks, where victims can be defrauded.
The attack on our website looks very different. Rather than hijacking the site for financial gain, it seems to have been aimed solely at shutting us down. The hacker(s) left the site and some of the hosting directories so riddled with hacked code that trying to root them all out was impossible. And in the view of our highly experienced technical advisor, who, by working all hours, dug us out of this mess, the attack displayed a level of skill that suggests it cost big bucks.
Déjà vu
There are strong echoes here of 2008, when we suffered a series of devastating attacks that finally led our long-suffering webhost to refuse to continue to host us. They said they were committing so many resources to defending our site while none of the others they hosted on the same server ever got attacked, even though those sites increasingly had far less security.
Back then, having the plugged pulled like that almost succeeded in silencing us because it wasn’t just our website that was driven offline – our newsletters and subscriber lists went down with it.
Learning lessons
We learned our lessons from that. When we launched our new website, it immediately came under attack, but, despite repeated attempts, it took nearly two decades before it was downed again. Equally importantly, we decentralised.
That meant that this time when our website got hacked to pieces, our independently hosted newsletters were completely unaffected. We could even use them to keep putting out new articles and then provide weblinks to the newsletter archive for posting on social media.
And when our popular X account was hacked, our Bluesky and Mastodon accounts kept going, putting out the news and issuing updates and warnings.
Volunteers wanted
So now our aim is more of the same: keep improving security, keep diversifying and so keep extending our reach.
But while the funds we’ve received have helped us recover from the attacks, our shoestring budget won’t run to employing social media professionals to help us get the word out on the platforms where we don’t already have an active presence, and where there is potentially a very large audience – platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Threads, for instance.
So can you help us?
Are you familiar with these platforms?
Could you help us set up accounts on these platforms and even help run them for a while?
Maybe you even have the skills to help us improve our impact on social media?
If you like what we do and think you can help in any way, please do get in touch with Jonathan, who manages our social media accounts, at
And if you’re not able to help in that particular way but would like to contribute to our fighting fund, please do donate here. As always, a regular donation, if that’s possible, is particularly helpful, but any amount, regular or not, is going to help.
Many thanks!
Claire and Jonathan
