The latest articles on DEV Community by Alexey Smirnov (@torrezz88). https://dev.to/torrezz88 https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F4228203%2Ff9c9850e-757a-4c59-b22d-4ad69464cb81.jpg https://dev.to/torrezz88 en Alexey Smirnov Thu, 05 Nov 2026 10:00:50 +0000 https://dev.to/torrezz88/my-hosting-got-hit-by-a-cyberattack-and-my-games-database-was-wiped-how-i-moved-a-browser-a5k https://dev.to/torrezz88/my-hosting-got-hit-by-a-cyberattack-and-my-games-database-was-wiped-how-i-moved-a-browser-a5k <p>I'm a solo developer building MLiga, a free multiplayer football manager that runs in the browser. A few days ago the hosting provider where it lived was hit by a cyberattack, and the database was deleted — every club, every match, the whole league history. Here is what I did next, and what I'd do differently.</p> <p><a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fprh58ayt89287s1ftw3t.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"><img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fprh58ayt89287s1ftw3t.png" alt=" " width="800" height="450"></a></p> <h2> The situation </h2> <p>The game is a single HTML file plus a small Node.js server. The server runs the same game code that runs in the browser, simulates league rounds on a schedule and stores everything in SQLite. When the provider's incident wiped the database, there was nothing to restore from: my only backups lived on the same server.</p> <p>I had two options: shut the project down or move fast and restart. I chose to restart.</p> <h2> What I did </h2> <ol> <li> <strong>Rented a VPS</strong> and set up the server from scratch with a short install script, so a rebuild takes minutes instead of hours.</li> <li> <strong>Moved to a new domain and enabled HTTPS</strong> with Let's Encrypt.</li> <li> <strong>Set up automatic backups</strong> of the database on the server, plus a small Python script on my own computer that downloads a copy on demand. Now a copy lives outside the server.</li> <li> <strong>Restored notifications</strong> to the community pages. Telegram is not reachable directly from my server's network, so I put a tiny proxy in front of the Bot API using a Cloudflare Worker. Large photo uploads kept dropping the connection, so the code now falls back to a text message if the picture fails.</li> <li> <strong>Restarted the league from round 1.</strong> Everyone starts from zero, which at least makes it a fair moment for newcomers to join.</li> </ol> <h2> Lessons </h2> <ul> <li> <strong>Backups on the same server are not backups.</strong> Keep at least one copy somewhere else, and test that you can restore it.</li> <li> <strong>Make the setup repeatable.</strong> A single script that installs everything saved me.</li> <li> <strong>Tell your players quickly and honestly.</strong> I added a notice at the top of the game explaining what happened and why everyone starts from round 1. People were more understanding than I expected.</li> <li> <strong>Small fallbacks matter.</strong> The Telegram picture-to-text fallback is three lines of code and keeps announcements working.</li> </ul> <h2> Try it </h2> <p>I recently added a guest mode so that new players can try the game without signing up: pick a club in Belgium, enter just a name and play. After a minute the game offers to save your progress with a login and password; if you skip it, the guest and the club are removed after 2 hours.</p> <p>Play here (free, in the browser): <a href="https://mliga.su/?guest=1&amp;lang=en" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://mliga.su/?guest=1&amp;lang=en</a></p> <p>If you try it, I'd love your feedback: is the guest start clear, and is anything confusing in the first few minutes?</p> webdev gamedev javascript devops