Fasthosts suffers hack attack

As John M points out -sending the new password in the post is very badly thought through. Wouldn't mind if that at least mean't my web site was still available to my customers but it uses an SQL database to which Fasthosts have changed the password so the whole thing now crashes.

KEY is support, fat chance! Every telephone number is blocked and the email support just doesn't happen.

Fasthosts have, without warning, changed ALL users Admin, ftp and SQL passwords. Worse yet, they are POSTING the new ones out to customers' unvalidated postal addresses. The Farcehosts' saga continues...

It is a very inconvenient time for them to advise that they are changing all the e-mail addresses as well in 10 days time (sorry fewer than that now). Christmas is my busiest time of year. To say I am furious is an understatement. If I decide to risk not changing email addresses, I think it's my business, it shouldn't be up to them to make unilaterial decisions for me.

They have told me to change my email address passwords by the 13th or lose them. As they have changed my main psw and turned off the password reminder service I can't, and they haven't answered any of my emails. Kind of strange having a denial of service attack from your own host.

In the past week we have received notification from Fasthosts stating that they have been hacked, and as a result of this all access passwords have been changed.
My question is, is this the second time that this has happened because a similar incident was reported in October, or are have we only just being notified of the October incident?
If this is new incident, surely Fasthosts have a responsibilty to make it public, and also to advise the Government that there may well have been a significant breach of the Data Protection Act.

Whats going on?

I need to change some nameservers as I dont want my site hosted with them and its like im wanting to build my own rocket and fly to the moon!

There support is as useful as hitting a brick wall!!!

Phonelines down and email just sends out a generic auto-responder!!!

Any ideas how to get in touch with them??

I agree that they have handled this in an inappropriate manner, it's outrageous, they seem to think there customer's will support a complete password change whilst cutting the customer completely off from services whilst they take down there effected systems to investigate there security ineptitude.

I know someone who is a fasthost's customer who has changed service providers as of this morning for this happening.

Comments found on other website's regarding this incident are less than full of praise over what fasthost's has done in responce to this security breach. My own mom use's fasthost's service's and her email from them dosnt mention there systems getting hacked at all, just hint at a polite need to change the passwords for security. What a bl**dy fiassco!

I run a business and the internet is everything for me...I need to log into it and change something nearly every day. I got the first notfication from Fasthosts and changed my passwords then a week or so later tried to log into my site but with no avail. I then got a letter from Fasthosts saying they had changed the passwords and would be sending new ones out by post.

Has no-one told them that it's Xmas? Have they never even noticed that first class post is totally b#ggered at the moment anyhow and everything takes weeks to get to you? 

I have tried to phone several times; 28 times I got a message saying lines were busy and cut me off and the rest of the time I got into a queue ranging from 38 - 49 people long....which took 2 hours to move 10 places!! 

What about maybe taking proper disaster recovery measures in a situation like this and putting more staff on the phone? Or even giving people a 0800 number to ring rather than national rate?

I emailed and asked them to ring me and got a note back waffling about why they had had to change the passwords and saying (very worryingly) that they would be sending them out as oon as possible....so the new passwords haven't even been sent out yet, 6 days after they wrote saying they would be!!

I was warned never to use Fasthosts, I didn't listen and now I'm paying the price and losing money and clients every day.

Very cross.

Fasthosts have left me high and dry. I cannot move my domaind because I cannot access my control panel. I have hosting and Exchange e-mail with them and that will soon go down on the 13th because I cannot acces the control panel to change the password!!!! They completely ignore me, I cannot access my account details to remove the card. So all I can do is warn the bank to stop ALL payments to Fasthosts and hope I can access my control panel at some time to move my domains away from them for good. I am desperate to get out but cannot, there must be legal angles to get them on for distress, loss of business, time e.t.c. Any ideas ???? Oh, by the way, I have just worked out, they ARE rubbish.

I have a site hosted by Fasthosts which I can't use at all at the moment since they changed the database passwords. Our site runs from an SQL database and can't be accessed since they changed our passwords. Meanwhile our site is down and we are losing business. Today their phone number is completely cut off, yesterday I was 46th in the queue. I have emailled and had nothing. It;s an absolute disgrace.

I have been trying to contact Fasthosts to try and get my new passwords and they are probably more difficult to get hold of than the Pope himself.

Of course I tried to contact 1and1.co.uk, United Internet - (the German super hosting company) - who are the new owners of Fasthosts since a year - they too are putting their hand up in ignorance....i am moving all my hosting as soon as i get access - of course i cant get access so this is almost deliberate ! Shame on you.

It's outrageous! I received my new password in the post finally this morning and IT DOES'NT WORK!!! My business email will be turned off next week and I can't move service providers due to the impossibility of logging in/contacting them to repoint all addresses and domains etc. I have an internet shop which cannot be updated, their phones are jammed and every single email we send has been ignored. I can't articulate it anymore!

I agree with all of the above comments - I cannot get into my control panel my password doesnt work. I have no FTP site which is ridiculous for a printing company that gets most of its work on dropped onto its ftp site. I have been with fasthost since 1998 and have been through all kinds of problems with them from complete server crash where I had to set up each website again from scratch all of the captured data was wiped out. right through to todays ongoing problem. many times I have thought of leaving fasthosts, If they wipe my email passwords before I get a password to get into my control panel I will be parked outside their build the next morning to take up the matter in person. Needless to say this will be the last time fasthosts let me down.

I am using domain services from last 10 years and this never happend before. How can they change password for our accounts we pay them for service. I can see how much benifit they are getting from this change. Can you amagin there are always about 50 people in the queue and they earn atleast 4 pence per minute from these calls. Which is at least £120/hour revenue they are getting from these calls. What else they want, I am working on to take a legal bettle on this with them.

Fasthosts still fail to respond to support emails instead consider to send out threats of account closures in relation to their security problems.

They say on their website:
"Our services are so reliable and easy to use, that less than 10% of our customers ever need to contact us. 
If you do need help at any time, we have experts on hand"

Such false advertising is illegal.

I'm now locked out of webmail and control panel, havent had email for days, run up a huge phone bill trying to get through to them.
They state on thier website-

*24/7 UK call centre

*If you need to contact us, you'll get a quick and accurate answer, any time, day or night.

*We aim to resolve all queries within 2 hours.

*Always someone here to answer your call.

* Engineers on hand for more involved queries.

Hahahahahahahahah - surely they cant say this legally, its simply not true.

As well as our passwords all our credit card numbers were also "protected" by their outdated "security" system - do we have to change all our credit card numbers too?

Had enough, Fasthosts are just idiots, i'm off!

Our emails are locked out? cannot use our FTP, to change email address, we have decided we will dump fasthosts, 
they are very bad for business, they only care about you having a credit card on their server? even now it insists on a credit/debit card.

I think hackers would have a field day with all those credit cards details?

Paul

I was totally unaware what was happening at fasthosts until the 13th of December when my outlook was asking for username & password, at first I thought it was a problem with my pc until I spoke to my IT support company, Monday the 17th phone Fasthosts, I was advised I was position 56 in the queue, waited on line for one hour and then spent the next 55 minutes talking to their support attempting to persuade them I was the owner of the account, I came off the phone and made immediate steps to transfer to an alternative isp.

Shortly after Fasthosts intrusion I was informed that Fasthosts have deleted my business website and have lost the data on my database. I’m not sure what to do next, Fasthosts have basically deleted my business. Any help or advice would be gratefully received!!