How can I log in?

[Peter_136]

Daniweb showed up as having a breached password in Avast, but if I try to log in it claims my computer's time is wrong so it is obviously thinking I have moved to a different timezone. How can I get in and fix it? I assure you I am not a bot or AI and I have a cat in my lap that will back me up.

[Dani]

If you are posting this, then you are logged in. You can reset your password here and you can log in with either your username or email address. You can also log in via Google or Facebook social accounts.

As you’ve suspected, the computer time thing you’re referring to is an anti-bot CAPTCHA mechanism we use. However, it shouldn’t matter what time zone your computer is set to as long as it’s the same time zone from when you loaded the page until you clicked the submit button.

The only thing I can see going wrong there is if your cat changed your computer settings while you had your back turned, but you probably would have noticed all the same.

I see you were able to get it working properly since you’ve logged in successfully and posted this now.

Regarding the breached password, this is from our FAQ:

In late 2015, DaniWeb suffered a massive data breach. The attack unfortunately resulted in the disclosure of 1.1 million email addresses. No personal information, passwords, or login credentials were compromised.

The attack was not discovered until December 2016, by which time we had already migrated onto entirely new infrastructure and software. Our current platform has been rebuilt from the ground up with security in mind.

Unfortunately, anyone who was an active member at the time of the attack, in 2015, had their email address become known to the hackers at that time. Rest assured that the hackers did not gain any access to your email account, any social media accounts, DaniWeb account, or any passwords. There is nothing that can be done moving forward. Deleting your account will not retroactively remove your email address from the hacker's database.

Thank you for your continued trust.

[Peter_136]

From this I gather the real problem is that Daniweb was the source of the data leak, so I cannot access my original account at all, or even find out if someone is using it?
Obviously I had to create another account to post this enquiry. Avast keeps throwing up notices and I finally got around to cleaning up the less important sites, but someone had used my account on another site to post pictures of I don't know what. I have had this email address about 25 years and don't want to change it now.

[Dani]

From this I gather the real problem is that Daniweb was the source of the data leak, so I cannot access my original account at all, or even find out if someone is using it?

Sorry, I misunderstood you in my previous email. I didn't realize that you had another account and just created this one to post this question. Do you know the username of that account, or the email address associated with it? It would be a different email address than the one you used for this account, as the same email cannot be associated with more than one account.

Yes, we were hacked back in 2015 and a list of email addresses in our database were leaked. Passwords were not compromised. Logins were not compromised. No one else would be using your account.

[Dani]

Send me an email to [e-mail] from the email address associated with your original account and I can help you out. What happens when you try to reset your password?