[Hidden-tech] web host problem - advice request

[Town Websites]

The problem of sites being attacked is not uncommon, and shared hosts are
more vulnerable for a few reasons; they have many sites to attack, and the
sites hosted often do not have professionals maintaining them and watching
for vulnerabilities. 

 

I put Bluehost above average among shared hosts, having used their service
for a few years until my needs changed.

 

You seem to have been unlucky to be on a particular server that required
fairly drastic action to shut down an attacker.  It isn't common, in my
experience, for a hosting company to move you to a different IP.  The most
likely explanation is that the IP address got put onto an email RBL
(realtime blacklist) because a hijacked website was spewing spam, that is a
fairly common mishap, and clearing an RBL takes time even for a well known
professional host that responds quickly - a couple days or more.  Perhaps
Bluehost's policy is to move clients to a different IP when an IP is put on
an RBL.  I think you should ask for a clearer explanation and a month's
service refund; you may not get them, but it is worth asking.

 

I'm not sure that a private IP would have prevented this particular
interruption .  Most often, a private IP on a shared host is used so you can
get a private SSL certificate, rather than a shared SSL.  Bluehost's own
recommendations a few years ago, in my recollection, is that they didn't
recommend a private IP to solve blacklisting of email issues.  If Bluehost
kept your account on the same server and just replaced a compromised IP
temporarily, a private IP might have prevented your problem.  It seems more
likely the server itself was taken offline and accounts moved, and they plan
to move the accounts back when the problem is finally resolved; that would
still involve at least some service interruption.

 

Going to another good shared host isn't likely to be any more or less
reliable than Bluehost - they're pretty good at what they do, by the
numbers, in my experience.  Your mileage may vary with your luck of the
draw, unless you're willing to spend considerably more money on the hosting.
I do recommend my shared hosting clients consider using free Gmail instead
of the shared hosting email to avoid the possibility of getting onto an
email blacklist and to improve reliability (IE, even 99.7% uptime means a
couple hours a month of intermittent email service; Gmail has five different
MX records rather than a shared host's one IP for email redundancy), but
that doesn't sound like the particular misfortune you hit.

 

Charlie

 

 

 

From: hidden-discuss-bounces at lists.hidden-tech.net
[mailto:hidden-discuss-bounces at lists.hidden-tech.net] On Behalf Of Val
Nelson
Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2010 5:53 PM
To: Hidden-Tech Listserv
Subject: [Hidden-tech] web host problem - advice request

 

Hi HTers,
Wondering what you think of this. My web host, Bluehost, has my website on a
shared IP. One of the other websites on that server was attacked so now my
site has been temporarily moved to a dedicated IP and I have to wait for
propagation (anywhere from 4-72 hours-ish) for the site to be found again. 

To make matters worse, they will move it back once they solve the attack and
then I'll have that same propagation situation. And they won't promise to do
that move back overnight. Hate that. 

Bluehost claims this is a fairly common occurrence for shared hosting
services but not common on any one server. Is this that common? Doesn't
sound right to me.

I'm trying to decide between paying for a dedicated IP ($30/year) or moving
hosting services. Can you advise?

Thank you!

Val

_____________________________________
Val Nelson

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val at valnelson.com
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