C I Host Battling Witty Worm

By The WHIR, March 31, 2004
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by Karen Snider, theWHIR.com

March 31, 2004 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- After suffering the damaging effects of the Witty worm last week, Texas-based C I Host (cihost.com), says it is reinforcing its Internet security and server back-up safeguards to prepare for escalated attacks in the future.

"This is a proactive move to prepare our systems today for the attacks of 2006," said C I Host CEO Christopher Faulkner. "Since January of this year, the attacks have increased dramatically and for the most part we have been untouched. But the latest attack, the Witty worm, could have been a disaster."

The Witty Worm began quickly spreading itself through the Net last week, reportedly affecting at least 50,000 computers. The worm worked by writing random data onto hard drives, exploiting a security flaw of computers with Black Ice and Real Secure Internet firewalls.

C I Host's problems with the Witty Worm first came to public attention last week when several of its 205,000 customers began posting notes on various Web hosting forums stating that their sites were down. One WebHostingTalk (webhostingtalk.com) forum user wrote that his site was down for 11 days. C I Host has not said exactly how many of its customers were affected.

"Some of our shared servers running Black Ice were adversely affected," Faulkner told theWHIR. "There was a service interruption, which varied from account to account. Although it was not widespread, it is to be expected that those businesses that were affected have concerns.

"Having said that, you should also know we worked around the clock to restore service for the sites that were affected," Faulkner said. "We do not expect any long term effects."

To protect itself in the future, C I Host has enhanced its security and back-up systems by adding increased tape systems for backing up and storing content. It plans to replace DLT4000 restore drives with DLT8000 drives, so that, in the event of a major attack, the tape units will speed restoration efforts by 300 percent.

Tags: security