Hacked!
For those who aren’t aware Dreamhost experienced a security breach. According to Dreamhost, approximately 3,500 accounts were compromised, the hackers taking note of FTP user accounts, user names and passwords.
With this data the hackers, using an automated script of some sort, added SEO links/inframes to every instance of index.html or php.
This is the last straw. I’ve been with Dreamhost since mid-2004 and recommended them on more than one occasion and even went so far as defending them when others complained about slow service or half-baked customer support, the latter being something I never experienced.
Not any more. It’s time to look for a new home.
Over the past two hours I’ve had to comb over my files, looking for anything that could have been stolen and to my knowledge some files might have been removed.
Not only that, but the password I used was one of the best passwords I’ve used in a long time and now, thanks to this, I have to piece together a franken-mash of numbers.
It’s sad because while I represent, according to DH, only .15% of the customers whose data was changed in some way, I just wish something could’ve been done to prevent this.
Yet, who am I to say that web hosting is safe from this kind of thing, which apparently it isn’t. I suppose I wanted to believe that they were impenetrable, even if that was a premature wish.
The culprits added inframes and linkage pointing to offshore sites displaying garbled information; SEO tactics indeed.
On the bright side of things, my entries are safe, every one of them accounted for since 2004. This wasn’t an issue really considering I’ve kept backups of my DB since the beginning and make it habit to do it frequently.
I’m also planning on moving to a new CMS and will be taking the entries with me to preserve for the future, when robots make swiss cheese sandwiches with George Forman machines.
Does anyone out there have any suggestions for a new host?
