Websites compromised in Fasthosts attack

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 30 Nov 2007 at 12:33

Fasthosts, the UK's largest web hosting company, has admitted that a number of its customers' FTP spaces have been compromised, as the fallout from last month's major hack on its systems continues.

In an email sent to its customers, Fasthosts claims: "today we have been made aware that a small number of our customers who did not change their passwords have experienced a compromise to their FTP space."

"As a result, in order to totally protect all of our customers, we have today implemented an automatic password change for every control panel, FTP or SQL password that was not previously reset. In 10 days time we will also reset all unchanged email passwords."

The company is sending replacement passwords out via Royal Mail, though reports suggest the sudden reset has caught a number of it customers by surprise, with their websites inaccessible while they wait for passwords to arrive.

Some people are even reporting that their sites have gone down, with one PC Pro reader commenting, "my company's site is currently down (now at least 3 hours, but possibly more) and the Fasthosts switchboard is jammed. Nothing has been said about this. I am not impressed."

"Some Fasthosts customers who did not change their passwords as was previously recommended, and whose websites utilise automated databases, may experience downtime as a result of their database passwords being automatically changed," a Fasthosts spokesperson told PC Pro. "We apologise to those customers affected for any inconvenience caused during the issuing of new passwords."