39:I[87087,["$1","$35","$5","$6","$9","$7","$8","$a"],"default"] 3c:I[27201,["$1"],"IconMark"] 3a:T866,

It’s Saturday afternoon, the weekend we’ve all been waiting for. The entire country just went completely dark—no electricity across all of Bangladesh. This wasn't standard, everyday load shedding; it was a massive national grid collapse.

Working at Banglalink, a nationwide power shutdown meant one thing: a massive influx of urgent work. Just as the lights went out, I received the emergency page. The team needed a quick downtime report immediately to get an accurate picture of the network status and the impact of the grid failure.

Luckily, my home IPS setup was good enough compared with my average load. It was capable of giving me more than 4+ hours of backup even with a full desktop computer running. But knowing this was a historic blackout, I immediately shut down the desktop to significantly stretch out the backup time, saving every drop of battery to keep my core networking gear alive.

Right amidst the pitch darkness, my phone started buzzing relentlessly. It was an urgent call from the office stating that they needed my immediate, hands-on support to handle the crisis. The telecom infrastructure was under massive pressure, and every minute counted to get a clear picture of the system downtime.

To get online, I relied on my Banglalink mobile internet connection. I fired up the device, initiated the Cisco VPN Client, and established a secure connection back to the office network using the IPSec/UDP protocol.

As the screenshot shows, I ended up locked in, troubleshooting, and supporting the infrastructure in pitch darkness for exactly 1 hour, 47 minutes, and 14 seconds. Spending nearly two straight hours managing critical telecom reports during a historic, country-wide blackout from a dark living room was definitely not how I planned to spend this weekend.

The emergency reports are finally sent, the mobile network is holding up, and the IPS is still going strong. Now, we just wait for the national grid to kick back into gear.

3b:T95f,

Ah, 2016. A time when Clash of Clans was life, dragons were the ultimate flex, and cyber threats were getting increasingly loud.

Back then, Bangladesh had just initiated biometric SIM verification. It was a massive, highly debated topic with tons of mixed feelings floating around the public. Naturally, opportunistic hacker groups wanted to ride that wave of controversy for clout.

So, when a group managed to breach one of our Corporate VAS (Value-Added Services) servers, they immediately started bragging. Their big, dramatic claim? “We hacked the Biometric Server!”

Yeah... lol. 😉

Here is what actually happened, and how we shut them down:

The Vulnerability

The attackers found an exploit through an old, forgotten service hosted on an Apache server running PHP. This server hosted various critical B2B solutions. Using that outdated service, they managed to upload a PHP web shell script, giving them a directory view and the ability to execute remote code.

The Lockdown

Fortunately, our architecture did its job. The corporate VAS environment was properly isolated inside a DMZ (Demilitarized Zone). Because of this segmentation, the entire core Banglalink network and actual sensitive systems remained completely untouched and safe. There was absolutely zero access to any biometric data.

The Dragon's Counter-Attack

Instead of panicking, I tracked down the entry point and deployed a swift, smart fix. I configured and pushed .htaccess files across the upload directories. This instantly killed their ability to execute scripts in those folders, completely neutralizing the web shell.

But I couldn't just patch it without leaving a little parting gift. Remembering my favorite CoC warrior, I left a custom message coded right into the denial response for the hackers to see:

"You are Messing with the Wrong Dragon!"

Deface Denied! How We Kept the Hackers at Bay

The Takeaway

This initiative successfully safeguarded our critical B2B infrastructure and minimized further vulnerability to cyber threats. It was a classic case of hacker theatrics meeting solid network segmentation and a quick, decisive patch.

Deface denied. Threat neutralized. Back to raiding villages!

21:["$","$L39",null,{"item":{"id":17,"pid":null,"title":"An Urgent Call of Duty: Surviving Bangladesh's Great Power Outage","uri":"an-urgent-call-of-duty-surviving-bangladesh's-great-power-outage","author":"Abdullah Ibne Alam","og_images":["images/an-urgent-call-of-duty-2014-11-01.jpg"],"short":"It’s Saturday afternoon, the weekend we’ve all been waiting for. The entire country just went completely dark—no electricity across all of Bangladesh. This wasn't standard, everyday load shedding; it was a massive national grid collapse.","content":"$3a","created":null,"published":"2014-11-01T00:00:00.000Z","displayonlyyear":0,"hidedate":0,"pinned":0,"ordering":9999,"displayonlist":1,"active":1,"tags":["CallOfDuty","NoElectricity","VPN","WeekendOffice","WorkingFromHome"]},"prev":{"id":8,"pid":null,"title":"Beyond First and Last: Why Pure Love is the Ultimate Connection","uri":"beyond-first-and-last-why-pure-love-is-the-ultimate-connection","author":"Abdullah Ibne Alam","og_images":["images/nature-flower.jpg"],"short":"There are theories that tell us which love is better, e.g. being first love of a woman or being last love of a man. In my opinion it's more important to get pure love rather than being the first or the last.","content":"

There are theories that tell us which love is better, e.g. being first love of a woman or being last love of a man. In my opinion it's more important to get pure love rather than being the first or the last.

\n\n

Relationships are often romanticized through theories—tales that claim it is best to be a woman's first love or a man's last. But does the true value of a connection really depend on a timeline or a sequence number?

\n\n

Instead of obsessing over who came first or who stays until the end, we need to focus on what truly matters: the purity of the love we share. True affection isn't about being a milestone or a final destination; it is about honesty, depth, and mutual respect in the present moment. In this post, we explore why genuine, conditional-free love outweighs any relationship order.

\n\n $\"Why$ ","created":null,"published":"2012-05-04T10:10:10.000Z","displayonlyyear":0,"hidedate":0,"pinned":0,"ordering":9999,"displayonlist":1,"active":1},"next":{"id":9,"pid":null,"title":"Deface Denied! 🛡️🐲 How We Kept the Hackers at Bay (And Called Out Their Biometric Bluff)","uri":"deface-denied!-how-we-kept-the-hackers-at-bay","author":"Abdullah Ibne Alam","og_images":["images/coder-home-pc-setup-dark.jpg"],"short":"Successfully dealt with compromised Corporate VAS servers and prevented from further hacking.\r\n[Though they claimed they hacked Biometric Server, lol ;)]\r\nDeface Denied!","content":"$3b","created":null,"published":"2016-05-18T10:10:10.000Z","displayonlyyear":0,"hidedate":0,"pinned":0,"ordering":9999,"displayonlist":1,"active":1},"startIndex":"$NaN","startMaximized":"undefined","autoStart":true}] 33:[["$","title","0",{"children":"An Urgent Call of Duty: Surviving Bangladesh's Great Power Outage - by Abdullah Ibne Alam - Blog"}],["$","meta","1",{"name":"description","content":"An Urgent Call of Duty: Surviving Bangladesh's Great Power Outage - It’s Saturday afternoon, the weekend we’ve all been waiting for. The entire country just went completely dark—no electricity across all of Bangladesh. This wasn't standard, everyday load shedding; it was a massive national grid collapse."}],["$","link","2",{"rel":"author","href":"https://abdullahibnealam.com"}],["$","meta","3",{"name":"author","content":"Abdullah Ibne Alam"}],["$","link","4",{"rel":"author","href":"https://repulsivecoder.pro"}],["$","meta","5",{"name":"author","content":"RepulsiveCoder"}],["$","link","6",{"rel":"canonical","href":"https://abdullahibnealam.com/blog/an-urgent-call-of-duty-surviving-bangladesh's-great-power-outage"}],["$","meta","7",{"property":"og:title","content":"An Urgent Call of Duty: Surviving Bangladesh's Great Power Outage - by Abdullah Ibne Alam - Blog"}],["$","meta","8",{"property":"og:description","content":"An Urgent Call of Duty: Surviving Bangladesh's Great Power Outage - It’s Saturday afternoon, the weekend we’ve all been waiting for. The entire country just went completely dark—no electricity across all of Bangladesh. This wasn't standard, everyday load shedding; it was a massive national grid collapse."}],["$","meta","9",{"property":"og:image","content":"https://abdullahibnealam.com/media/blog/images/an-urgent-call-of-duty-2014-11-01.jpg"}],["$","meta","10",{"property":"og:type","content":"profile"}],["$","meta","11",{"name":"twitter:card","content":"summary_large_image"}],["$","meta","12",{"name":"twitter:title","content":"An Urgent Call of Duty: Surviving Bangladesh's Great Power Outage - by Abdullah Ibne Alam - Blog"}],["$","meta","13",{"name":"twitter:description","content":"An Urgent Call of Duty: Surviving Bangladesh's Great Power Outage - It’s Saturday afternoon, the weekend we’ve all been waiting for. The entire country just went completely dark—no electricity across all of Bangladesh. This wasn't standard, everyday load shedding; it was a massive national grid collapse."}],["$","meta","14",{"name":"twitter:image","content":"https://abdullahibnealam.com/media/blog/images/an-urgent-call-of-duty-2014-11-01.jpg"}],["$","link","15",{"rel":"icon","href":"/favicon.ico?favicon.1s9kz1cy8-vtv.ico","sizes":"64x64","type":"image/x-icon"}],["$","link","16",{"rel":"icon","href":"/favicon.ico"}],["$","link","17",{"rel":"icon","href":"/icon.png","type":"image/png"}],["$","link","18",{"rel":"apple-touch-icon","href":"/apple-icon.png"}],["$","$L3c","19",{}]] 38:null