4800 Aussie Websites Lost After Being Hacked
A break-in occurred at the Australian Domain Registrar and web host Distribute.IT. As a result, 4800 Australian websites have been lost where there is not a chance for recovery.
Four of the company’s servers have been declared “unrecoverable” according to the company since the attack had caused so much damage. Thousands of website owners are still in the lurch.
According to Distribute.IT, “The overall magnitude of the tragedy and the loss of our information and yours is simply incalculable; and we are distressed by the actions of the parties responsible for this reprehensible act.”
A report from Fairfax Media last week stated that the attack on Distribute.IT was “deliberate, premeditated, and targeted”. However, the company is still doing its best to work out and find out exactly what had happened and how much data was stolen.
It has been warned by security experts that websites were vulnerable to being hijacked and that data were at risk of being stolen.
Whirlpool Forums is where the affected website owners are venting their frustrations saying that Distribute.IT. did not adequately respond to their queries regarding the break-in. Some are even saying that it ruined their businesses.
However, Distribute.IT is quick to say that it has been working round the clock to attempt to recover data from its servers.
“At this time, We regret to inform that the data, sites and emails that were hosted on Drought, Hurricane, Blizzard and Cyclone can be considered by all the experts to be unrecoverable. While every effort will be made to continue to gain access to the lost information from those hosting servers, it seems unlikely that any usable data will can be salvaged from these platforms,” it said.
“In assessing the situation, our greatest fears have been confirmed that not only was the production data erased during the attack, but also key backups, snapshots and other information that would allow us to reconstruct these servers from the remaining data,” added Distribute.IT.
The 4800 websites affected are told by Distribute.IT that they have no other choice but just to “assist you in any way possible to transfer your hosting and email needs to other hosting providers”.
Since Distribute.IT has not yet been able to put back up its website, it is communicating to its clients via a Google blog site. It is in fact using a temporary email add, distributeit888@gmail.com.
This has been a “catastrophic problem” for those with websites being hosted by Distribute.IT, according to Rob McAdam, CEO of security firm, Pure Hacking.
“If these clients of Distribute.IT had no other backup other than what was at Distribute.IT, they would then have to rebuild their site – from scratch,” he said.
“From the Distribute.IT blog post, it appears that they have lost all of the content for these web sites and any associated backups that Distribute.IT kept,” he added.
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Source : http://www.smh.com.au/technology/security/4800-aussie-sites-evaporate-after-hack-20110621-1gd1h.html
