Judging by the surnames they must be of some sort of Slavic origin and the 1st country that comes to mind is Russia... But they could also be from any of the Eastern European nations that were former Soviet satellites which is why I'm not 100% confident that these characters originate just from Russia only... They're probably some teenagers showing off how they could hack into famous American institutional web sites... Or just a harmless prank...
However, it might be prudent to run a diagnostic on the home network of the AWS to make sure they didn't plant any Trojans and/or bots (viruses and/or Malware) which if successfully inserted into the server, or anywhere else within the network, can cause mayhem, and chaos to the system and potentially cause the system administrator to start pulling out their short hairs if you get my meaning...
So my advice would be to first check out whether or not all, and I mean all of your installed system applications are currently updated, that the operating system application is up to date, and to make darn sure that all ,and I mean ALL of the installed software applications have the latest security updates and any other update... Check the service packs are installed properly, and enabled also because sometimes just installing the applications, security updates, and any other type of application update may need to be enabled in order for it to work as designed...
The next step would be to check the firewall settings, and configuration as well as to make sure it has at least triple layer firewall protection, and/or an active dynamic firewall hardware installed as an alternative... And to check every application to make sure they have the appropriate permissions, and check for any other potential leak points, or loopholes if you will, that might give any hacker an entry point to bypass the firewall... Look for any open ports (excluded from firewall protection) on the network that can potentially give the hackers a backdoor to enter the server and/or network also...
And make darn sure that the correct network software, and protocols are being used, and have not been altered in any manner - no matter how detailed, and how deep into the system one must check into the configuration settings in order to verify that all the X's and O's are properly configured... Because if you don't go step by step, layer by layer then you may have missed a potential weak point in the security of the system which would leave it vulnerable for further infiltration... Make sure all of the software applications are not only installed, but also working properly because sometimes hackers overload an application with malicious code in order to alter, disable it or to permanently damage it to not work properly so the hackers could sneak into the system via the altered, disabled or damaged application... This is a very common method of attack being used by hackers of Eastern European origin...
So be on the look out to make sure that every installed application is working and configured properly, and also look out for any software that is installed but, you were not previously aware that the specific application(s) was installed... Because that's another trick hackers use in order to breach your security... So make sure every application listed in the firewall are legitimately installed with a specific purpose, and reason for being in the system... Because if an application is listed in let's say for example: "All Programs" but, not listed in the control panel, or within the firewall application security list, then you have found a probable entry point for hackers to use, or are already using to gain entry into the system, and to manipulate it the way they want to which is a very big problem and it must be corrected immediately!
If that checks out okay, I would then run a couple of completely thorough malware scans, and then the antivirus programs currently installed... And if possible to install another alternate anti virus software application that's comparable in robustness with the original antivirus program that's currently installed... In order to check for the possibility that the original AV application may have missed something in the system when it scanned, and the alternate AV application could pick it up as well as to prevent false positives virus or malware detections also... It's really important to remember to disable the original Anti-virus program prior to the installation, and use of the alternate AV (Anti-Virus) application in order to avoid any potential software conflicts... and it's really important to check before running the alternate AV application that a complete scan is the choice to use instead of a limited one...
All of this may take some time, and I know you can't disable the entire network in order to troubleshoot the way I just described, but there's no reason to do so anyway because everything can be done in the background of the running system... Once all of what I mentioned has been completed and nothing is found, it doesn't necessarily mean that there's nothing wrong with the security of the network. because for the exception of troubleshooting the possible hardware firewall if it's even being used as part of the security features of the system, so far the only area's checked have been the software...
The next thing to do is to run a diagnostic on you hardware, and bios/memory/firmware to make sure everything is "copastetic" there also, because after all is said and done, this could also be just part of a prank that a few youngsters typed in when they tried to get everyone previously to check out their websites by listing them in posts throughout the forum sections... So that they could lure us in to there own devious attempt to use as a way to infiltrate any one of our PC's or MAC's without any of us recognizing the intent of their posts... And yet it was too obvious for some of us - if not all of us to be tricked into clicking the links they posted...
Finally, this could also be some residual information that wasn't initially deleted from the forum application that ended up being harmless fragments leftover in the forum application from their attempts to infiltrate individually each of our computers, and to hack any of our systems in order to make them bots which is another story and explanation all together which I'm not going to get into at this time...I'm optimistically leaning towards the last possible explanation I wrote describing what, how and why those names, and birthdays are in the forum system... And I'm confident that the administrators will get to the bottom of investigating why this is happening and repair the problem... All I'm offering is some counsel, and advice to think outside of the box also in order to find a probable cause as well as a solution to the problem so take it for what it's worth.
Respectfully,
Henry
I agree ....leave these links in the signatures and profiles of these bogus users alone, no telling where they will lead you. Most likely just spam type advertising, but some of these could be sending you somewhere that you do not want to go.
