Web Hosting Talk Under Cyber Attack

by Hillary LaClair, Senior Editor
April 7, 2009

              Cyber-attacks have become the web hosting industry’s greatest fear in recent months, with the Conficker worm having forced 300,000 internet domains to shut down. It would seem that no one is immune to internet hackers as leading web hosting news website, Webhostingtalk.com, has reported an attack that has compromised the financial information of its paying customers.

                The website reported on March 21^st that it was down for maintenance. It’s RSS feed read on the 26^th that its data base was repaired but then again that it was down for maintenance. Today, however, the company posted a much more alarming update in the RSS feed.

                “This morning, the hacker who attacked WHT initiated further communication. He provided evidence that credit card information on one of our database servers was, in fact, compromised during that attack.

                “At this point, we know that the hacker compromised and has publicly posted credit card information from our self-service billing system currently used for sticky posts (located at http://myinet.inetinteractive.com). This system was also used for display (banner) advertising in prior to December 2007.”

                Webhostingtalk announced that premium and corporate members of the company or those that display a banner ad with the advertiser from December 2007 or later are safe from the attack. WHT has since contacted all major credit card companies to notify them of the attack on the website and is “awaiting their guidance.” Any user who feels his credit card information may have been pilfered should note that any fraudulent charges will not be counted toward the card holder because of the report.

                The latest update at WHT notes that from what they know now, “there were more records on the database server where the credit card dump was taken,” and that the company will contact any affected individuals directly.

                The company is conducting a full security sweep of its servers and is not expected to be restored until it is sure that the servers are secure and the review is complete. WHT will keep in contact with any paying customer whose account information may be in jeopardy.