Has Nebula Been Hacked or What?
Hmm - i’m lucky to have two webhosts. All sites on my MDWebhosting account are down, displaying hacked by root-x. It’s 2 days of downtime now - no email or ftp. No response from tech support via email, and the phone-support numbers don’t work. One of them is constantly engaged, while the other one just doesn’t work.
All i have is an announcement which says,
“The Nebula server is undergoing an O/S reload. Once this is complete all data will be restored.”
That doesn’t say much/enough.
Not good. A google search revealed to me a few articles that about 5 servers got hacked on December 20th 2007. Caused by failure to correct security profiles, with IP blocking systems & firewalls not being adquate? Hmm.. they’ve had two months to address this. A new attack or did they just not get around to securing things to prevent it from happening?
I’m not too phased, in that webhosting companies will always have their seriously bad hair days but this is not looking good - especially when my accounts at Bluehost have not experienced as many server-related problems in comparison. Time to move-on? *sighs* ~ Maybe.
RennyBA said,
February 23, 2008 @ 1:05 pm
Sorry, Cant’ tell - am not en expert, but I do want to wish you a great end to your week
RennyBA said,
February 26, 2008 @ 6:07 am
Hello from Norway again. Come on over and see what Tor and I did last week together with our wife’s
Owen said,
February 26, 2008 @ 9:29 pm
In the same boat. Have five websites with separate domains all of which have been permanently offline or functional for an average of 6 hours every 24. The Whirlpool forums are filled with over 1000 posts from angry customers all of which are experiencing similar problems and the same support issues you are describing. Thinking it may be time for us to bite the bullet and get the hell out. I’ve got so much data on their servers though and have been pulling what I can off via FTP at aggravatingly slow speeds. I was stupid enough to sign on for 12 months so will be chasing a refund to boot. Let me know if you find a decent alternative web host. Will be interesting to see what happens to MD as their idiot business services manager (Tom Najda) has already made public statements leading to the inevitable conclusion that MD have been negligent in the rendering of their ’services’… if you can even call them that. Hope it works out well for you
DEFINITELY not alone on this one.
R’acquel: Hi Owen, thanks for your comment - good to hear from you, it helps not being alone with it. I know i’ve not been alone with it (dead phone & dead tech-support being a dead-give-away) - but nice to hear from someone else outside of a whirlpool forum. *lol* Was not thrilled to endure 3 days of downtime with this recent fuck-up. Email/ftp dead as well, didn’t receive important business leads. Fucked, but not as bad as Smartyhost when we experienced 7 days of 24/7 downtime. tsktsk.
Businesses that i don’t recommend and have blacklisted:
One.Tel (now dead)
Dingo Blue (now dead)
NetRegistry
Smartyhost (still trying to shake these assholes off who still try to contact us with false domain name renewal notifications - despite numerous phone calls telling them to delete it out of their fucking systems)
- I have a client with MultiBase, she’s not too happy with them.
Compared to the above, MD Webhosting has actually been quite impressive in terms of tech support being fairly approachable across the last 2.5 years i’ve been with them. They’ve been good with their billing (unlike NetRegistry).
I shopped for another webhost for my blogging sites about 1.5 years ago. Found bluehost.com - which offered a shitload more bang for my buck. The reason why i continued to keep the business sites with MD, was hey - those sites generate Australian money/social capital, so Bluehost was an overseas “cheapie” i could afford to give a trial run with websites that weren’t so critical. If Bluehost sucked, then my sites hosted with them wouldn’t cause me too much pain with downtime.
I quit paying “yearly” a few years ago due to going through the “year upfront - they fuck up, don’t refund and you’re sort of trapped” shit - that’s what put me on the monthly payment way of life. The reason why I opted to pay upfront for a year with Bluehost:
They were offering 50gig of space @ $7.95/month (if you pay it yearly of-course).
MD offers 5gig @ $19.90?/month.
Erm..hello - 50gig vs 5gig?! I made a conscious choice to piss my money up the wall. 50gig was like 10 times more bang for my buck and 60% cheaper - worth taking the risk to host “hobby sites” - but i think it’s wise to always pay monthly if you have a critical website that can’t afford getting fucked over (and then loosing your money in the pursuit of needing to keep your sites online & seure).
MD recently had a special ‘deal’, which reduced the price down to something like $9.95/month, which is why i opted to pay for a whole year upfront. I’ve been quite happy with them, which is why i felt confident to lock it in. At this point in time, i feel like i got snookered - or will view significant pricing discounts like this with great suspicion in future! I’m in no rush to move on, because MD has had a long track record of pretty good service for me but this recent fuck-over with Nebula is a red-flag for me to start planning-ahead with finding another back-up webhost.
I haven’t had to contact tech support much with Bluehost any more than 3-4 times in the last 1.5years, but their responses via email were not as well written compared to MD Webhosting (cold, perfunctory, a bit rude - mildly patronising). That’s another reason why i stuck with MD - didn’t know if i could deal with tech-support that didn’t come across as “warm” in the event of a disaster with business websites hosted with Bluehost. Us-based too - can i possibly afford an overseas phone call in the event of needing phone-support over a really serious matter? ..and well, in the event of serious fuck-ups, aren’t the channels of support always choked at the throat with poor, inept & evasive communication to customers anyway?!
Now that the bulk of this debacle is over - i’m still gonna probe MD to explain to me what happened until i get a clear & direct answer.
I like the intermittent newsletters from the CEO of Bluehost that announce new upgrades & improvements to the hardware - i like that the CEO communicates publically. It’s coming across as a business that’s proactively investing in service improvements, but i’m sure Bluehost could have it’s bad-hair day too. Who knows what kind of hurricane or electrical storm is going to generate a blackout or circuit blitzkrieg (we get enough of it over here via Integral Energy browning/blacking out in Leura when thunder strikes and it’s not even raining).
I know that webhosting companies will always be prone to bad days. In this instance, i think it’s been a case of poor/complacent business practise with MD. If Nebula was hacked, this is no different to the other servers getting hacked in December - so they’ve failed to implement preventative strategies. I see that those currently on Centauri & Universe are probably going to endure major headaches & pain with the servers being moved. If people experience costly downtime & data loss with that move, then i know it’s going to be time for me to up the ante with finding an alternative service to ship out with. Like, didn’t they learn how server moves can seriously affect dynamic websites resulting in painful dataloss when it happened to Nebula maybe a 1.5 years ago?!
I doubt that they’ve informed the customers about the Centauri & Universe server rellocation in-advance.
I seriously don’t believe that they’ve learnt from previous experience.
OH YES, it’s time to start working on alternatives alright.
MD has been really good for me, so much better than the others (listed above). Maybe i just lucked out with Nebula as i sense this server has not has as many hard times compared to others which i know have probably been responsible for many heated “I hate MD” threads over at the whirlpool forums. They’ve been consistent in service for me, so i think i can afford a few more months while i press forward with lining up my exit strategy.
At this stage - i don’t have the guts/confidence to move “EVERYTHING” across to Bluehost despite how ’so much more’ it’s been in comparison to MD. I have no experience with migrating complex/dynamic websites across and can’t afford to go through anyMORE downtime just right now. It certainly has been really good for me to have two different webhosts with my sites to see how they compare. Bluehost is looking a shitload more robust & reliable and i’ve also found it’s cPanel to be more up-to-date in comparison to MD.
However enticing Bluehost may be right now, i’m not going to risk such a move until i take the time to look for other webhosting companies that offer more security and honourable compensation for downtime. It will pay me well to invest in 3 different webhosts now - that way - I’ll at least have one website with email & ftp working in the event of two different companies fucking up at the same time. *lol*
I don’t think you will ever know until you’re with a webhosting business for a long period of time to really find out how good they are. As i’ve been with MD for 2.5years, they’ve still out-performed all the
cuntsrunts preceding them. Have been through enough shite across this last decade to know that problems will and do occur. I keep finding better things by moving on and trying different/new services that live outside of my comfort bubble. It pays to shop-around.Do let me know how you go with getting a “refund” Owen - and if you find a better webhost at your end.
/long-vent (yes, i’m feeling much better now that i’ve gotten that out of my system)
richard said,
February 27, 2008 @ 3:52 pm
I think it depends on the type of hosting you get.
I have a cheapy host for personal e-mail. It was offline for 4 or 5 days a few months back. I think they focused on getting the main, high speed, dedicated servers up first and then worried about the poor sods like me who only shell out for a cheapie virtual server.
R’acquel: That’s one reason why i regard cheapies with caution. Bluehost was coming across that way - so that’s why i haven’t had the balls to transfer serious sites across. Needed to give it time to monitor performance/service levels. The account i have with MD wasn’t exactly cheap - in the middle bracket, but i think people on more expensive accounts have had more problems compared to my account on Nebula. Downtime & data loss can cost businesses a lot of money/resource. This would be disasterous situation for me if i had many clients with high-volume ecommerce sites & discussion forums. There’s only so much risk-management you can plan-ahead for, sometimes life is just going to throw a curly one that you weren’t expecting. What make the difference for me, is when people acknowledge the problem and proactively plan to prevent it from happening in the future. Some people are very good at this, while others aren’t. Keep searching until you find other like-minded folks i guess. That’s my strategy
aka R'acquel said,
February 29, 2008 @ 4:05 pm
UPDATE: It looks like Bluehost is gearing itself up for a bad hair day. Unable to intermittently connect to the email server. Nothing’s foolproof. Time for a full back-up, just in case! *cack*
TorAa Mirror said,
March 1, 2008 @ 5:26 am
Grrr, I know how that is. I say no more