Johnny that’s a phishing email, it’s not real. You need to change your SDMB password immediately. You have given them your login info to this board, and any other place where you use the same username and password.
I reported your post to break the link, too.
Is this a phishing attempt? I got the same email about six hours after I re-subscribed with a URL that directs me to the avolatech website. It looks like SMDB but clearly is not.
Are we under attack?
Hm. Changing my password now.
The board doesn’t need to be hacked in order to send these emails. Someone can pay for a membership then collect a list of member user names and email addresses (members can see other member email addresses if the member has chosen to share it) and then send out a mass mailing with the phishing link. If the person can suss out when membership purchasing first began, it’s not hard to send the email at the right time.
Set up the fake payment link, collect a bunch of payments (and logins), make a few hundred bucks, gone with the wind.
Or, the board could have been hacked. Or this could be the result of the prior hack, where someone could have ended up with a username-email address-subscription date list and done the work from there.
I just got this too and knowing my subscription was due followed the link.
I don’t know my password but Firefox does.
Couldn’t use their form so just logged in as normal and went through the usual procedure.
Looking in the user CP it has been credited as usual.
I got two emails - one legitimate and one phishing.
Make sure that the link you click goes to:
Ah. I know what’s going on. It’s not a hack and it’s not a phishing attempt.
If you get a message with an avolatech link in it, just ignore it.
ETA: DO NOT USE THE AVOLATECH LINK TO RENEW YOUR SUBSCRIPTION. That is a site used to test the SDMB software and it is not the real SDMB site.
Same here. The fake today, the real one two days ago.
So who is Henry Joseph of Avola Tech? Is that you? 
I demand a Special Prosecutor!!
Sorry… too caught up in Watergate…
I have notified our admins that the test software is running amuck. Hopefully they can get it to stop sending out e-mails soon.
Please let us know if you continue to receive e-mails with avolatech links in them.
Sorry about the confusion.
I have no idea who that is. It’s not me.
Jeebus, I just checked that with my new renewals expiration date, I’ll have been a paid member for fifteen years . . .
Tripler
I’m surprised y’all ain’t voted me off the island yet.
Can’t believe I fell for the phishing attack (yes I changed my password)
Brian
You would just blow up the ballot box.
Oh give me some credit. . . it would be an interesting fireworks show.
Tripler
Complete with the “1812 Overture.”
Henry Joseph is the owner of avolatech.com which is the domain of the fake payment link.
He appears to be a real guy and it is a real company so it was even more confusing as to what was going on.
Ditto here, got the email today, reupped on May 6th!
So…was it, or was it not something I need be concerned about? A phishing attempt? Or not? Do I need to change my password? Or is NOT clicking on the link enough?
Could a mod please answer these questions for people as confused as I am?
It’s not something you need to be concerned about. It was not a phishing attempt and we have not been hacked. You do not need to change your password.
It’s basically a test site that we use to test changes to the SDMB software. We have been testing some things, and since the renewal time for all of the charter members is coming around, our test copy with our modified SDMB decided to send out reminder messages, just like the real SDMB does. We are testing with an old stale copy of the SDMB, so if you have renewed your membership, the test copy isn’t aware of it, which is why it kept sending out notices with incorrect dates on them.
Sorry for the confusion.
OK, now I want to know more about what you’re testing. Do we have anything interesting to look forward to? And one reason we were given that management was unwilling to make changes to the board was that the server was underpowered and there wasn’t enough IT support to move to a better server. But for a while the board has been hosted by Amazon, so presumably it’s not a big deal to beef up the server or even have multiple servers. So, for example, can the search limitations be dropped?