Getting hacked on blog-launch day — Can tech still do good in the hands of humans?📱🖥️💻📺

Technology feels like a countdown clock, a digital doomsayer, and trying to fix it after hacks and digital attacks is a fiasco. Is this all there is? 📵

An update from Audrey Korte

7:45 p.m., Sept. 18

The Lightship: Navigating Troubled Waters 💦

Howdy folks 🤠

After a messy launch of the website last week, I wanted to share an update now that I have time and some more information.

My accounts faced aggressive attacks throughout the week in a critical security incident. Identity and Dark Web monitoring show that the buttheads, as I will refer to the group of thieves, likely already had some of my personal information from previous large security breaches in 2024 and early 2025.

I had no idea my information was compromised in the “Mother of all Breaches” in 2024. In 2025, I was one of thousands whose personal information was stolen in a cyberattack on Lee Enterprises, where I worked from 2022 until July 2025.

Needless to say, a person with a live site, a big mess on their hands, and little experience with Wix is a solid target. A handful of these buttheads kept me busy and distracted while others went to work.

The attacks on some of my accounts—especially banking—have continued. It’s been many days and long hours on the phone with security services, web developers, and financial institutions around the clock. I have two security companies monitoring my identity, tech, and accounts.

But once the info is out there, I see no easy fix.

About 32 data brokers have responded to demands to stop sharing and using my leaked personal information. Dozens more have not responded. And most won’t. The damage is here regardless.

🚨 User Information

🕵️‍♀️ The website and Facebook account are actively being monitored for anything funky, rest assured. Site security for all of you was a priority.

We spared no time or expense 💵 (thanks to mom & dad 🫶) getting this handled. I called on computer guys that I know from Wichita—some people I can trust, finally. They went to work on launch day, Monday, Sept. 8, and aided me throughout the week.

Some may recall The Lightship site came down for a day after a rocky start. We needed to figure out what was wrong, and once security became the focus, it felt right to unpublish the page until we knew what was happening and got it fixed up.

I will keep you informed if anything else comes up. 🚧 I don’t know if the website was the main course or just an amuse-bouche.

I took the brunt of it, and my personal information is in some dark places now—a digital Diagon Alley 💀🤡👁️.

It’s a big thumbs down 👎. And it took up much of the week that I had planned to use to continue creating content and making the site better. I was very disappointed, obviously. Not how you want it to go on day one, especially.

Lightship Sets Sail… Sorta ⛵️

For those who tried getting onto The Lightship blog last Monday and Tuesday, you found any number of issues. These included lack of access, paywalls, illegible inconsistent fonts, invisible components, color variations, missing photos, buttons and links missing, super weird layouts, and more.

It was not a good time for me watching it happen—not being able to fix the situation myself. I tried.

The website definitely did not look like that Sunday—the night before going live. I felt prepared enough for day one. The post looked good.

When we became aware of potential issues, attempts to correct these crazy problems were unsuccessful at first and actually made things worse for a beat. I did not know what the source of the trouble was. Or that Wix sites are not iPad-editing friendly. I think that did not help, but the source of the problems—I was not really sure. I was totally confused Monday.

Every five minutes, the site looked vastly different.

At one point, I used my phone to edit fast after a number of words had randomly turned red. I changed all the fonts to black—now there are only two available on the mobile device. There’s a little one and a big one. No colors—you have to log in through the editor’s account on a desktop (that’s my understanding with Wix) for that fanciness.

Just imagine my surprise after I updated the fonts and hit publish when I looked at the site half an hour later to see large portions in white text. White on white. Good Lord.

This happened to the web designers a couple of times also. Later, the text was black on black, and again the font sizes were changing around—using some fonts I did not have access to.

Ghost in the Machine

I said at one point it seemed like AI was in control.

I wasn’t using AI, but the amounts and kinds of changes were too many for something simpler. I felt the technology was related, and I wanted to understand what was wrong so we could prevent the same from happening later.

I couldn’t really come up with anything else: I said it felt like there was a ghost in the machine! 👾🤖😱 Maybe there was.

The issues began immediately Monday and mostly extended over the next day ⏰ on the site.

People who know a lot more than I do about web design and online security were baffled by some of the issues at first too, but they helped rescue the site just the same and get us back online. It has never looked like it did Sunday again, unfortunately. But we’re good.

I am incredibly grateful for the assistance from a number of people who jumped at the chance to aid me in the middle of their busy Monday😍. I won’t soon forget it 💪🏻.

At one point, we took the site down to investigate and check its security.

I, along with a number of legitimate web developers, worked all week to resolve the worst and to secure everything 💯.

Needless to say, I am filing 👮 reports, freezing accounts, putting fraud alerts on my credit, and documenting everything while addressing damages 💰 $ 💳. It has been frustrating and frightening.

I upped my online and real-life security.

Hopefully, this continues to get resolved, with no further troubles. I would like to get back to writing ✍🏻 and making my website look great 👍, but I am still in the thick of it.

😵 Seriously? 😳

My bank is something I deal with daily. The hackers gained access to my accounts successfully, changing my login and disabling my pin. I was immediately notified because, of course, I had security alerts on everything, but I had just taken the holds off of my cards to buy groceries.

The next day, I found out these mofo’s were bold enough to call the bank pretending to be me—they almost got the accounts unlocked again. They know a substantial amount of my personal information.

Luckily, USAA 🇺🇸 has my back.

I’ve never been through anything this severe with web security—a coordinated campaign amongst multiple bad actors 👹—leaving a mess that was extremely confusing, intensely violating, and creepy in ways I won’t disclose yet. But it is all pretty dangerous in the end. I hope karma bites them in the ass.

What a time to be alive and online 💻.

There’s more, but that is all for the public.

The incident has left me underwhelmed with website creation—and Wix especially—and overwhelmed by human nature. It’s been one of the most negative experiences I’ve had in a decade. But I remain committed to this. I don’t run away at the first sign of trouble. And like most of this year, if nothing else, it makes for a good story.

Be careful—stay safe out there, y’all. Don’t let people push you around.

Don’t let frustration or embarrassment keep you from moving forward.

We will survive. 🤞

Onward.

— Audrey Korte ✌️

The Lightship: lightship.blog