by BB62vet » Mon May 04, 2026 12:59 pm
As a very long standing member of MSW, I was quite disappointed in the events of the last week regarding ship modeling websites and how international hacking, etc. has affected our ship modeling community.
A more detailed account of what occurred is available on the Ships in Scale website via this link -
https://shipsinscale.com/2026/05/02/mod ... 2s73ebcqrg
In addition, Sea Watch Books, a sponsor of MSW/NRG published the following letter from Jim Hatch, MSW Admin & NRG Board of Directors explaining what they think occurred. This was provided by the editor of Ships in Scale/Sea Watch Books, Mike Ellison on 02 May 26.
In the last three days, there has been a global issue regarding the software that operates computer servers. This has impacted websites and servers around the world. An unscrupulous group of hackers had found a way around server security and had broken into many servers, destroying data. Unfortunately for us, Model Ship World's server was one of countless to be affected. Over the last 36 hours, our host had taken our server offline to apply software patches which would secure our server, but by the time they did this, it was too late. The attackers not only deleted the files from our primary disc, housing MSW, but also deleted the three backups we had on a secondary, separate drive. Model Ship World doesn't exist in any form. All files, photos, structure, posts, and data have gone. This was out of our control, and there will be many sites around the world, including corporate/business sites, which will also be destroyed. All we can do from this point is to move on. It will take us some time to recreate the site as members knew it. However, it will NOT have the posts, topics, and photos etc. It will be a fresh start. I certainly hope they are able to "relaunch" the MSW website & forum for all to enjoy and participate. Please bear with us while we look at this task, as our staff also have other regular jobs and need to fit this into their schedules. We will be back though. Please bear with us at this time and give as much support as you can.
I certainly hope they are back online as soon as they are able to resurrect their website.
As a very long standing member of MSW, I was quite disappointed in the events of the last week regarding ship modeling websites and how international hacking, etc. has affected our ship modeling community.
A more detailed account of what occurred is available on the Ships in Scale website via this link -
https://shipsinscale.com/2026/05/02/model-ship-world-suffers-catastrophic-data-loss-in-cyberattack/?syclid=d7sdgp60im2s73ebcqrg
In addition, Sea Watch Books, a sponsor of MSW/NRG published the following letter from Jim Hatch, MSW Admin & NRG Board of Directors explaining what they think occurred. This was provided by the editor of Ships in Scale/Sea Watch Books, Mike Ellison on 02 May 26.
In the last three days, there has been a global issue regarding the software that operates computer servers. This has impacted websites and servers around the world. An unscrupulous group of hackers had found a way around server security and had broken into many servers, destroying data. Unfortunately for us, Model Ship World's server was one of countless to be affected. Over the last 36 hours, our host had taken our server offline to apply software patches which would secure our server, but by the time they did this, it was too late. The attackers not only deleted the files from our primary disc, housing MSW, but also deleted the three backups we had on a secondary, separate drive. Model Ship World doesn't exist in any form. All files, photos, structure, posts, and data have gone. This was out of our control, and there will be many sites around the world, including corporate/business sites, which will also be destroyed. All we can do from this point is to move on. It will take us some time to recreate the site as members knew it. However, it will NOT have the posts, topics, and photos etc. It will be a fresh start. I certainly hope they are able to "relaunch" the MSW website & forum for all to enjoy and participate. Please bear with us while we look at this task, as our staff also have other regular jobs and need to fit this into their schedules. We will be back though. Please bear with us at this time and give as much support as you can.
I certainly hope they are back online as soon as they are able to resurrect their website.