Access to the website this morning has been limited due to what are known as brute force attacks, which are fairly common malicious attacks by bots (automated programs) that randomly scour the internet look for website logins & then initiating a sequence of login attempts using random credentials in very rapid succession in an attempt to gain access to the site. Usually, the bots soon move onto the next site, if unsuccessful, but while they are hard at work firing off one login attempt after another, it can overwhelm the resources of the website server.
I have experienced brute force attacks on occasion in the past, par for the course when running a website & with the proper security configurations, they are just a temporary inconvenience. After working with my web hosting company today in order to get the site running smoothly asap due to the current conditions in the stock market, we are temporarily implementing a preliminary login to access the usual login page, which will block the bots & soon send them along their way.
Upon logging on to the site, you will first need to enter the following username & password if this pop-up box below appears during the login process:
username: rsotc_member (underscore required)
password: tempPW (case sensitive)
Please note: All credit card information used for membership payments NEVER passes through RSOTC.com, nor is it stored on the site or accessible in any way. Membership payments are processed through an iFrame which is a pop-up window/direct & highly encrypted/secured portal directly to the credit card processor, Stripe.
To be clear, RSOTC has NOT been hacked, the site is merely experiencing a fairly common high-volume hacking attempt in which this site has always had very strong security in place to protect against.