IX Web hosting lame

Back in August I posted about some of the problem I was having with my web host, IX web hosting.  All of my files had been reset to read only as well as having junk code inserted into them.  When I contacted IX they shirked all responsibility for the issue and insisted it must have been because I had a virus or trojan on my PC.

Well that post has evidently been found by various other IX Web Hosting users since I posted it and guess what, they had the exact same thing happen to their accounts.  Of course this meant that IX was full of shit.  The compromise was not isolated to one user’s content, it spanned the server.  It really pisses me off.  In response I sent the following to them as a “comment”.  I hope it gets in front of the higher ups at IX but I highly doubt it will make it past Vladimir or Dimitry…

Back in August I contacted IX after every single file across ALL of my domains had their permissions reset to read only and also had malicious code injected into the end of every single html and php file.  I notified IX of the hack and told them that it happened across all of my domains, not just one.  I suspected there was a server wide compromise that could have allowed the hacker access to all of my domains.

IX help desk staff dismissed any responsibility for the problem.  Instead they pointed the finger back at me, saying the problem was surely because I had a trojan on one of my computers or perhaps one of my software installations was insecure.

I indicated to IX staff that this was highly unlikely since I am a local network administrator and take the necessary precautions to make sure my local pc is not compromised.  Furthermore, the applications I had on IX (WordPress blog and PHPBB3) were up to date with the latest versions.

None of this mattered to IX staff, they refused to look into any sort of problem on their end.  They said that had no other reports of problems on the server. 

Since that initial problem I have had several other incidents where phishing files were dumped into my site as well as some malicious code being injected into my PHPBB3 board.

Again I did some research and contacted PHPBB3 tech support.  They indicated the type of attack pointed to a server wide compromise.  I passed this information to IX support and again asked if they could look IN DEPTH at web237 to see what was going on.

AGAIN I was told I had a trojan or my software was not up to date.  IX refused to accept any responsibility for the hacks.

Well I posted about some of my issues with IX in my blog.  You can view that post here. https://blog.duf.net/?p=1800 (read the first paragraph and the comments from other IX users at the end)

What I discovered were other IX users having the EXACT same compromise that I did, meaning the problems WERE across accounts and not isolated to just mine because of a trojan or virus on my pc.

If IX has any interest in maintaining it’s customer base I suggest a new attitude is taken by their support staff. There ARE issues with security on your shared servers and they are not being addressed by your network admins.

I understand it is far easier to simply point the finger back at your customers instead of making the considerable effort to full investigate these type of issues.  However I would offer that if you have any interest in more of this bad word of mouth not spreading across the internet you may want to stop exclusively blaming your customers for the poor security on your shared servers and take some responsibility for securing your shared hosting services.

I would appreciate it if this comment found it’s way in front of the IX President/CEO.