Another data breach occurred at a web hosting firm this week, this time in Ireland where web host Blacknight was subject to a hacking break in. Unlike Bluehost, some web hosts do not have the required security levels to protect their data against hackers.
According to the Irish Times however, no financial data was reportedly stolen in the breach and only email accounts were said to be taken. Chief Executive of Blacknight Michele Neylon said
“Unfortunately the reality is that we and our customers are attacked on a daily basis. We’re trying to deal with it as responsibly as we can.”
Blacknight have 40,000 clients on their files and suspicions of a data breach emerged after some customers started receiving spam emails on email accounts which were based on the servers of Blacknight. As usual, with these sort of attacks, it is not known who is actually responsible for stealing the data.
According to Blacknight, the breach happened on January 31st and the police and the Data Protection Commissioner in Ireland have been contacted about the incident. Unfortunately, high levels security, which can be found at Bluehost, are very necessary for web hosting providers. Without it, they are exposed to constant attacks as hackers try to obtain information which they could then use to scam people out of their money.
Not so long ago, a web hosting company in the US, Dreamhost, was subjected to such an attack, and although again only email addresses were taken, it shows that hackers are getting closer to stealing ever more information from web hosts. Like Dreamhost customers, Blacknight’s 40,000 clients will be advised to change passwords on the accounts just in case. This is becoming a very serious issue for a lot of web hosts and you would be well advised about asking about security issues before signing up to a new web hosting provider.
