So I got hacked!
Around 3pm on Sunday 4th October, Havoc Inspired and all my client sites along with about 700 other sites hosted on the same server, were hacked!
24 hours later I received an e-mail from my hosting provider:
At approximately 14:48 on Sunday all accounts on the server we host your reseller account on were targeted by a hacking group. They exploited a script from a customers account and were able to upload malicious scripts which were then used to exploit a PHP function to deface all hosting accounts on this server.
As soon as the hack was discovered we began restoring all accounts using our R1Soft CDP Backup system, this process however is taking much longer than normal and we will be raising this with R1Soft which we understand this doesn’t help you now. The full restore process should be complete within the next couple of hours, at this moment most sites on the server are back to normal.
Several of my client sites are still yet to be restored…
The attackers basically replaced every index file on the server with their own malicious script that shrank the browser window and made it float around the screen, eventually resulting in the browser crashing.
As you can imagine, I find this unacceptable. Therefore I have decided to move to a dedicated virtual server with Media Temple. I have had mixed responses to this decision, some people worn against, others swear by them…
The server runs Plesk which I am pretty familiar with already and was available for me to start configuring within 15 minutes of me pleasing the order, very impressive!
Their knowledge base also seems to be quite extensive and I’ve easily found example commands that I just needed refreshing on.
So so far so good. I kind of feel like a grown up now, having my own server and there’s something about being able to SSH that just feels hardcore to me.
Anyone else with Media Temple? Experiences good or bad?
5 Comments
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Gonzalo González Mora 5th, October 2009 at 12:15 pm
I'm not a MT client so don't take me too seriously. From the tweets and blogposts I've read it seems that the support is good, but the main problem with them is their downtime. Sometimes they have really long periods of downtime, but it seems they're doing pretty good lately...
Regarding oher VPS providers, I've heard a lot of good comments about SliceHost. I don't know how they perform, but their (public) KB and Wiki are really out of this world, lots of articles for starters like me :)
Anyway, I hope MT is up to your expectations and let us know if there's any problem :D
Paul Millar 5th, October 2009 at 12:22 pm
I've been on a MediaTemple DV server for about 8 months now, and I've nothing but good words to say it / the service they provide. Support is usually very quick too, and very helpfull. (I asked them a week ago about how I would go about reducing ram / solving an issue I had) - And they gave me about 30 solutions - most of them uncanned too.
I asked yesterday where I could get one of those neck things Paul Boag is wearing here: http://paulboag.posterous.com/why-people-think-i-should-stop-blogging
And they appear to be sending me one for free!
Very chuffed!
Joshua Clanton 5th, October 2009 at 2:44 pm
I've been using MT for about two years now, and have been quite happy with the experience. I'm on the (gs) service, which is where most complaints have been directed, but aside from one incident performance has been quite good.
David Radcliffe 6th, October 2009 at 11:48 am
I've been a MT customer for several years now and I've been running a dv server for over a year. I've had maybe 10 minutes total downtime in over a year and I have nothing but great things to say for their team. They respond to support requests quickly (and even quicker if you tweet them). I had a gs account for a while but I needed more power and more everything. The dv line is great and very easy to manage. Great choice!
Ryan Taylor 6th, October 2009 at 11:51 am
So generally positive experience I can see. That's good.
I've been impressed so far. Made a support call last night, answer the phone after 4 minutes and between us we resolved the issue so can't complain there.
Fingers crossed!