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Bluehost has been hacked

by LozJames
10 replies
Hi Guys

Just wanted to see if anyone else is having trouble with Bluehost hosted websites and emails. I've been onto their support staff today and found out that some of their servers have been hacked. This means all my sites and emails are down. Here's a quote from the support chat I had with them:

Me: [4:55:25 AM] What is a "Distributed Denial of Service attack" - is it hackers?
Bluehost Support: [4:55:51 AM] It is I am very sorry. Its still under attack. We are working as fast as we can to resolve this issue unfortunately it can take a few hours to a few days to resolve. We have security but we can not prevent people attacking the server no hosting service can. All hosting have these attacks happen it takes time to resolve the issue.

A few days!!! I thought large hosts like this had effective hacker protection measures in place?

Anyway, just a heads up in case anyone else is having the same problem.

Cheers!

Loz (losing money) James

PS - I must add that the support I got from them has been good during this though.
#bluehost #hacked
  • Profile picture of the author Dean Jackson
    Bluehost is great and im sure your files will be safe.

    I haven't ever had trouble with them and i use hostgator as well. Damn hackers!

    - Dean
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  • Profile picture of the author Riddelsome
    I Did notice about an hour ago my website was acting up, posts we're removed, some things we're missing. Not sure if these was effected by the hackers, but I sure hope everything will go back to normal. I got upset with trying to find a way to make money that I kind of just quit trying to adjust things. So I haven't looked at my website again yet.
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  • Profile picture of the author Riddelsome
    Oh, and forgot to add, I do use Bluehost.
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  • Profile picture of the author Danny Turner
    One of my sites on Bluehost was hacked this week.Bluehost suspended my account for TOS violation - my responsability to keep passwords secure
    sites were down until I contacted them - was told the offending file. Was reinstated after I deleted it.
    Lousy customer service in my opinion.
    Had a similar thing on hostgator a while back , their response was to run a check on the account and remove the offending files
    big difference in customer service
    I will be moving my account from bluehost to another soon
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  • Profile picture of the author hireava
    @Loz: We're been using Bluehost for a long time in our website and we haven't yet experience that kind of problem and we hope we won't. And I think you don't have to worry much they will resolved the problem, sure to that!
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  • Profile picture of the author tpw
    A "Distributed Denial of Service attack" does not mean the site has been hacked...

    A DDOS attack simply means someone is requesting an abnormally large number of pages from their server...

    It has happened at various times to even the biggest websites...

    The best defense against this is a great surplus of bandwidth and processing power...

    Right now, they are trying to find the common denominator on the offending computers, so that they can block the offending traffic...

    I recall times when even Yahoo was subject to the DDOS attack... All they can really do is to try to stop the onslought of traffic...

    In essence, what is happening is that on a normal day for example, they handle 10,000 page views an hour... In my descriptive example, they could be fielding 100,000 or 1 million page requests an hour right now...

    Please be informed that hacked is totally different... Hacked indicates a security risk -- non-authorized persons adding content or removing content from sites...

    The DDOS attack is designed to bring the servers down, by pummeling the server with page requests...
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    • Profile picture of the author LozJames
      Thanks, that's a great response :-0
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    • Profile picture of the author seasoned
      Originally Posted by tpw View Post

      A "Distributed Denial of Service attack" does not mean the site has been hacked...

      A DDOS attack simply means someone is requesting an abnormally large number of pages from their server...
      ACTUALLY, a DoS means "someone is requesting an abnormally large number of [network requests]". A DDoS is KIND of the same thing, but means it is DISTRIBUTED over several servers!

      The best defense against this is a great surplus of bandwidth and processing power...
      Actually, that isn't possible. If it is a DDOS, you could have tousands of systems working in unison, etc.... The best defense is exactly the OPPOSITE of what you suggest. Turn off enternal port capability, disable ping, limit requests from the same IP over time, etc... Processing power won't do it, because they usually want to be in and out. And adding bandwidth will just run up your bill. Besides, you don't want people to be able to connect to you, you want them to be able to do something they consider worthwhile.

      The DDOS attack is designed to bring the servers down, by pummeling the server with page requests...
      They don't even really care if they bring you down. They REALLY want to just prevent others from doing anything.

      BTW sometimes hackers hack OTHER computers to get THEM to make the requests. It is easier, cheaper, more effective, and harder to track.

      Steve
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      • Profile picture of the author LozJames
        Either way I'm screwed until they get it back up :-)
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  • Profile picture of the author Caleb Spilchen
    Hey There,

    Having been a host myself, back in the day. Bill Platt explained the DDOS above right, it's not being hacked, it's just someone attacking . I've had my VPS nodes, and things like that attacked before, BlueHost needs to find the user doing it, and suspend the account, unfortunately, sometimes thats not very easy.

    Caleb
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    Canadian Expat Living in Medellin, Colombia

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