Cyber attacked, a web host forgets 4800 sites

Victim of a computer attack, the Australian registrar and host Distribute.IT has lost close to 4800 web sites after being cyber attacked.

This is certainly scary news. On Saturday the 11th of June, Distribute.IT fell victim to a computer attack on their network. A "premeditated" and "targeted" attack was conducted, although the real objective is still unknown. The attack was conducted by a "hacker" going by the nickname Evil.

This attack on the Australian registrar and web host has had some serious consequences. While most of the data was recovered following the attacks, four servers were considered irreparable, leaving thousands of web sites out of action.

On Tuesday, Distribute.IT stated: "We regret to inform that the data, sites and emails that were hosted on Drought, Hurricane, Blizzard and Cyclone can be considered by all the experts to be unrecoverable".

The Sidney Morning Herald has also reported that at least 4 800 Web sites have "evaporated after the hack". It appears that Distribute.IT didn’t have of site backup procedures in place, leading to certain clients being understandably upset.

This is a disaster for Netregistry, who yesterday announced the acquisition of Distribute.IT, promising: "We will be assisting with resources and solutions to all Distribute.IT customers in distress following the extremely unfortunate recent hacking attack".