There have been some recent allegations stating that a handful of compromised websites on our network involved with domain traffic “hijacking” was somehow connected to the illegal intrusion in January that caused us to initiate a complete password reset of all FTP and SSH users.

An extensive investigation has revealed that no customer FTP or SSH user accounts have been maliciously accessed due to this password breach. The websites reported as involved with this traffic hijacking have been reviewed and the site owners notified of the issue on their sites.

Domain hijacking has been around as long as web apps have existed, and until bug-free software exists, it will continue to trouble website owners for some time to come. We wanted to explain exactly what is meant by “hijacking” to help clear up some confusion.

Have you ever wondered, “Why would anyone try to hack my website?” Many answer this by presuming they’re too small of a target to become a victim of a high-tech crime syndicate, but truth be told these criminals want your sites and they want them badly. Why? Well it all comes down to money. The more hosts they have compromised, the more money they can make.

Cyber criminals’ main intent is to hit a site and go unnoticed…until it’s time to cash out. Attackers don’t care how big or small you are, and it is more likely that a site that is run by a small business or single site owner is going to not only be behind on their security updates for any software running on their site, but it’s also unlikely that they regularly monitor their site for malicious activity.

The “cash out” phase is usually when of our customers first find out that they’ve been compromised. By that time their site(s) are now taking part in one or more unscrupulous online activities. We will be doing a short series of posts that cover methods these attackers use as well as what you should be on the look out for.

Today we will be going into just one of these attacker’s malicious actions, so you know a little more about what to look for.

Traffic theft: via infected .htaccess files.

If you notice your site’s traffic unexpectedly dropping, or perhaps you’ve been flagged by Google as having “malicious” content, then there’s a good chance your site has been compromised.

What the attackers may have done is setup or infected your existing “.htaccess” file on your site. .htaccess files are read by your web server to govern the way your site behaves. .htaccess files can be created with rules that will steal your legitimate traffic and send the visitor to an attacker’s malicious URL. This attack originated with by simply infecting a site’s pages via iframe tags, but it has since evolved to utilize .htaccess “RewriteRule” and “ErrorDocument” directives.

Here is a simple example:

ErrorDocument 403 hxxp://congatarcxisi.ru/mays/index.php
ErrorDocument 404 hxxp://congatarcxisi.ru/mays/index.php

And here is a more complicated one:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^.*(google|ask|yahoo|baidu|…
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ hxxp://congatarcxisi.ru/mays/index.php [R=301,L]

(to explain the above, the attackers are basically taking any search engine traffic, and redirecting it to their site)

You can check for these types of infections on your own! Just review your site’s .htaccess files (you may need to enable viewing of hidden files in your FTP/sFTP client so you can view “.htaccess”.) We are already actively scanning for these infections on our customers sites, so if you see an email from our Security team please make sure you review the report and take the recommended actions.

Based on the sites we have cleaned up already, these attacks have almost universally been due to insecure website software running on the site in question. You could have the best passwords in the world, but if the apps you’ve installed on your server have any security vulnerabilities or aren’t kept up to date, attackers can still find their way in.

We are are open to sharing information about web based attacks because we strongly believe in cooperation, collaboration, and responsible disclosure regarding Internet security. If you are interested in providing details related to these attacks or have questions for us, please contact our abuse team with information about any projects you may be working on that may be related to these infections and we will be glad to discuss this matter with you further.

In a follow up post I will cover the life of a web based attack when a new vulnerability is released (from 0day to 1000day), so stay tuned!

In the DreamHost spirit of transparency and openness, I’m providing this update on our blog on the security issue yesterday. It’s necessarily pretty dry and factual, unlike most DreamHost posts, but that’s important to communicate as much detail as possible while not disclosing the inner workings of our security defenses. The bad news is that we detected access to one of our databases and took rapid action to protect customer accounts and passwords. The good news is that it does not appear that any significant malicious activity has occurred on any customer accounts as a result of the illegal access.

Early yesterday, one of DreamHost’s database servers was illegally accessed using an exploit that was not previously known or prevented by our layered security systems in place. Our intrusion detection systems alerted our Security team to the potential hack, and we rapidly identified the means of illegal access and blocked it.

Our first priority in this situation is to protect the safety and security of our customers’ websites and information. A quick review of the data potentially accessed indicated that some customers’ FTP and shell access passwords may have been compromised. So we decided to err on the side of caution and immediately initiate a forced reset of all customers’ FTP and shell access passwords, with the aim of preventing any illegal activity on customer websites. All FTP and shell access passwords were reset, and customer notifications were inserted in the web panel and on www.dreamhoststatus.com asking customers to specify new passwords once they’d logged in.

DreamHost has three types of user passwords – a web panel password, FTP/shell access passwords, and email passwords. Web panel passwords and email passwords were not accessed or affected. However we recommended in an update email to customers and their email users late yesterday that they reset their email passwords as well, as a precaution. It’s important to note that NO CUSTOMER BILLING INFORMATION OR OTHER PERSONAL INFORMATION WAS ACCESSED.

Our Security and Software teams have been investigating if any customer sites, apps or blogs have been affected as a result of the intrusion. As yet we have not identified any major issues – potentially as a result of the swift action to force a password reset. We’ll continue to monitor all systems and investigate and assist with any issues if they come up. We’ll all be working hard over the coming days to minimize any impact on customers beyond the password reset.

DreamHost uses a sophisticated suite of security software and constant monitoring that typically prevents any type of illegal access to our systems. In this case, our systems were not able to prevent the unauthorized access, however our intrusion detection system did allow us to respond immediately and minimize customer impact. We’ve already implemented changes to prevent any similar attempted hacks, and we’re performing a rigorous security review including a detailed review of customer input on potential vulnerabilities. Defending against cyber attacks is unfortunately an everyday part of business for Internet companies, so we’re constantly evolving our security measures to prevent them.

Thanks to all our customers for your patience, support and understanding. We acted swiftly to minimize the risks of the intrusion, and we know that changing passwords has caused you inconvenience. Customers who have ongoing concerns can contact our support team through the web panel. And I’ll be posting another update here if further information that can be shared publicly.

Simon Anderson
CEO, DreamHost

In the hosting industry customers do switch hosts from time to time.

It happens.

Customers leave DreamHost and old customers come back to DreamHost. Every day.

It happens to us, and it happens to other hosts.

It’s an endless cycle of creation, destruction, and rebirth.

It keeps things interesting and it keeps us on our toes.

There are many reasons for customer churn. Pricing, features, service levels, and positions on hot political issues are just some of the many criteria that a discriminating hosting customer might look for when selecting a home for their website.

“SOPA” has been in the news a lot lately. It’s a piece of legislation that threatens the very nature of the Internet. DreamHost opposes SOPA. Many web hosts do. But not all.

The Save Hosting Coalition explains why SOPA is bad for web hosts. And americancensorship.org explains what’s wrong with SOPA in a great infographic.

If your host has rubbed you the wrong way about SOPA or any other issue, allow us to lather you up with this special offer…

It’s a great way to get yourself up and out of a bad hosting situation, and in to the loving arms of DreamHost – lovers of open-source software, WordPress, free speech, freedom on the Internet, puppies, kittens, and candy.

Whatever your holiday may be, HAPPY IT!

Not-so-long-ago the freshly-remodeled Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, California was the site of the 2011 DreamHost Holiday Party!

As we head into this holiday weekend we wanted to share some photos of the merriment and hijinks that ensued!

Our holiday parties are family-friendly! Unlike our Halloween blowouts!

Disco band The Funky Hippeez provided some live entertainment…

Some celebrities stopped by for photos…

CEO Simon Anderson gave a quick presentation to thank everyone and their families for allowing us to do what we do! He had a little help…

We raffled off some neat stuff too!

At the risk of offending even one of you, “Happy Whatever”!

See you in 2012!

For the second year in a row DreamHost has been named to the Orange County Register’s list of Top Workplaces!

We’re so excited we even wrote a press release, so you know it’s a big deal.

The OC Register, in association with Workplace Dynamics, collected anonymous surveys from over 18,500 employees across 119 companies from Orange County.

This week the results were finally announced. You can find the Top Workplaces 2011 supplement in today’s edition of the Orange County Register.

10 large companies, 25 mid-size, and 40 small companies made the cut, and we’re happy to announce that we were at #10 on the small companies list.

Last night the companies named to the list were announced at an awards dinner full of lots of suits, ties, and dresses. (We left ours at home.)

Our own VP of Human Resources, Art Elizarov, even took the stage as a presenter for the evening!

You can check out our company profile for more information about what it takes to be a Top Workplace in Orange County.

Once you’ve had a chance to look over the winners, why not dust off your resume and apply to work at DreamHost? We’d love to have you, and there’s no shortage of open positions…

Last Saturday night we held our annual Halloween party at The Edison in Downtown Los Angeles. We loved it so much in 2010 that we decided to do it there again!

And, for the second year in a row, it was glorious!

The very talented Debra Gerson helped us capture the evening in photos and we’ve thrown them up on Flickr. Some of the costumes this year were unreal.

We’re hoping to see you there next year!

All you have to do is get hired. We’ll take it from there!

This won’t come as much of a surprise to DreamHost users, but e-commerce sales are on the rise. (Hey, that’s why you have a website, isn’t it?). DreamHost recently polled their customers to ask about the e-commerce activities taking place on their sites, and the data was interesting to say the least.

Overall in 2011, 26% of DreamHost customers say they have e-commerce systems in place on their websites (up from 20% of customers in 2010). The number of websites accepting popular payment methods is also up. PayPal remains king, with nearly 78% of websites accepting PayPal (an increase from 72% last year). Credit card transactions are decidedly less popular, but also increasing from year to year. Today 37.9% of websites are processing credit cards online (compared to 24.7% in 2010). The percentage of websites with manual processing for credit cards increased from 8.7% in 2010 to 12.3% in 2011.

Some other interesting results from DreamHost’s survey:

What do you sell online?
Of those with e-commerce systems, 74.2% are selling physical goods like clothing, art, and cars. Digital goods (like music, ebooks, and video) are offered by 36.2% of websites. Services are being sold by 37.1% of websites.

Secure certificates
In 2010, 22% of DreamHost customers said they had a secure certificate on their website. Today, that percentage has increased to 25.1%. Of those, 61% got their secure certificates from DreamHost.

The 3 biggest complaints about e-commerce software
2010                                      2011
1. Ability to use plug-ins       1. Technical support
2. Technical support              2. Ability to use plug-ins
3. Documentation                  3. Documentation

While many e-commerce solutions will work on DreamHost accounts, DreamHost has partnered with CafeCommerce to offer an exclusive e-commerce software offering.

Lately, there’s been a lot of talk about Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS, not to be confused with the easter egg people, PAAS), what distinguishes them from each other, and how they all fit into the more general concept of Cloud Computing.  Software as a Service and Infrastructure as a Service are generally well understood, but Platform as a Service still remains a bit of a mystery to many people.  In this short series of posts we’ll take a stab at explaining it a bit, starting with an introduction to the concept of platforms as they apply to software and dipping into the basics of Platform as a Service.  In future posts we’ll get into more of the nitty gritty.

What is a Platform?

A platform is anything you can leverage to accomplish something in a simpler, faster, or otherwise better way than you could without.  A platform may even provide a way to accomplish things that would otherwise not be possible at all.  In the most basic sense a platform is something physical that you can stand on to reach up higher.  In the software world it’s essentially the same idea.  As a programmer, you leverage pre-exisitng code rather than starting from scratch and writing everything.  The most well-known software platforms for desktop software are Windows and Mac OS and it’s generally very clear where those platforms end and the applications begin.

Web Platforms

In the world of web-based software, the infrastructure or hosting layer is analogous to desktop computer hardware and the platform layer is analogous to a desktop operating system.  In the very early days of web hosting, companies like us provided a service that was not much more than some disk space on a pre-configured Linux server with web server software running on it and a smattering of common scripting languages such as perl and python.  Those early hosting platforms were really only a thin layer on top of Linux itself.  It saved you from having to know how to configure the underlying software but didn’t really help you develop your own websites faster.

A lot has changed since then and web platforms have changed along the way, too.  Hosting services have automated the management of the underlying operating system and have exposed that to users in the form of increased control.  Additional features such as email distribution lists, contact form handlers, e-commerce options and other tools that make it easier to build and run a website are part of almost every hosting service, and even the installation of third-party web software platforms and frameworks is almost completely automated.  More advanced services, such as the one offered by DreamHost, also provide managed security, scaling options via automated migration between service levels, integration with external services such as content delivery networks, and an API providing on-demand launching of private servers and fine-grained control over DNS records.  Web platforms today provide a significant level of automation, control, and tools to help you build and manage your websites and that works great for almost all websites, but successfully scaling a very busy website can still take more work than it should.  That’s where Platform as a Service comes in.

Platform as a Service

The ultimate goal of a PaaS is to make it easier for you to run your website or web application no matter how much traffic it gets.  It should “just work”.  Where traditional managed hosting services have been pushing towards providing you with more control over the managed environment, platform services remove you from that aspect of the system altogether and manage it completely for you.  You just deploy your application and the service figures out what to do with it.  A platform as a service should handle scaling seamlessly for you so you can just focus on your website and the code running it.  That’s what I think is the holy grail of Platform as a Service and not necessarily the reality, though.  Platform services that exist today typically provide parts of this with some set of limitations appropriate to the type of user or application they are targeting.  In the next post in this series we’ll discuss some of the different kinds of platform services.

And if none of this is remotely interesting to you, you may still appreciate the more fun kind of platform.

The Internet has become a money making machine for many people. We’re really happy to see this as it’s allowed many of our customers to become successful. A customer with a successful web business is bound to be a customer that pays their hosting bill on time! Unfortunately there are also unscrupulous noogoodnicks whom will do ANYTHING to make another dollar. Some of their favorite forms of monetization include infecting sites with hidden spam links, stealing a site’s traffic via redirects, uploading phishing pages, or even worse – turning a site into a node for a web-based botnet that sells access to the highest bidder on an underground forum or IRC channel.

Attacks on web sites and applications have evolved rapidly over the last decade along with the rise of global internet access and dependence. As is always the case, an increase in money exchanging hands and the related comfort level with those monetary exchanges has brought the Internet to the forefront of revenue creation models by criminal gangs and crooks of all sorts.

Long gone are the days where the worst a site owner could expect when their site is compromised was a modification to the site’s front page content, usually including some sort of nasty message or witty prose. Current web-based attacks do their best to cover their exploit tracks in order to allow the attackers maximum time to do their criminal nastiness. This works in the attacker’s favor because as long as the website owner believes that their site looks and functions as intended, then there isn’t a second thought given to potentially being compromised by fraudsters and nogoodnicks.

Understanding these criminals and their intentions will prepare you to deal with them effectively when they cross your path.

Scene One: “The Attack!”

The criminal’s goal is simple: Infect as many sites and systems as possible without getting detected and cash in by providing access to these infected systems. This attack starts with scanning software that is armed with known vulnerabilities and insecure passwords. The attack rapidly scans random IPs and search engines for any trace of web sites with known vulnerabilities. Once a target is compromised the attackers then upload backdoor shells and hide them on the site somewhere that will not be detected. As you may have guessed, the backdoor shells they uploaded have the ability to run the same scanning mechanisms and will be used to compromise more sites and expand the network controlled by the criminal!

The above alone doesn’t generate a criminal any cash. All they will have is a list of ‘attack nodes’ at their disposal. This is when the entrepreneurial criminal comes into play. They will hold onto part of their attack nodes and keep them safe, while offering access to the other nodes for a price… And who would buy access to these nodes? More criminals of course!

By this time the site has been compromised for days, weeks or even months and will begin to show signs of having been exploited. The original criminal will at some point sell access to spammers. As career spammers are affectionately known to do, they will upload spam pages (pharmacy and phishing pages are common); or they sell your site to some shady marketing people to use your site in a BlackHat SEO campaign to boost a spammy site. Besides spammers it is also common for these criminals to sell to other criminals for their own botnets. They will pay for access to the backdoor just to upload their own backdoor! (criminals stealing from the criminals, what else would they expect?)

In the end, it isn’t uncommon to see a site compromised and then eventually end up looking like a hot mess with dozens of backdoors uploaded and hidden all over the web site. In the worst cases spammer links are injected on every page on the site, making it so every visitor whom is simply looking for your site, “Bob’s Toy Emporium” on popular search engines somehow finds themselves redirected to purchase little blue pills on a not so legitimate site.

Scene Two: “Don’t Let The Bad Guys Win!” (aka: “What YOU Can Do”)

Prevention!
It’s easier to stop the attackers before they hit than to clean up after them. The vast majority of web based attacks can be prevented by choosing a strong passphrase (P.S. You should also use sFTP instead of normal FTP, change your habit today!) and upgrading website software as soon as there is an update available! We make updating many popular website software applications easy with our One-Click Installation system — plugins, add-ons or custom code would still be your responsibility to upgrade though.

Detection!
“Because knowing is half the battle.”
Be aware of the files on your site and take an occasional review of them. See something out of place? Check into it! If it looks like a blind and rabid cat got a hold of the keyboard, then you might just have a problem (a problem that may be worse than if you actually had a blind rabid cat on your hands.) Here are some quick examples of malicious code we commonly see appended to website files:

eval(base64_decode(“aWYoZnVuY3Rpb25fZXhpc3RzKCdvYl9zdGFydC

or

$HixNlV=’as’;$eQovrf=’e';$xsEWcg=$HixNlV.’s’.$eQovrf.’r’.’t';$HtJYXB=’b’.$HixNlV.$eQovrf

The attackers use many methods to obfuscate the purpose of their backdoors, but they all have in common the fact they don’t want you to be able to understand what their purpose is. There are some exceptions, but if a file doesn’t seem to belong on your site and you didn’t put it there then there should be reason believe that you have been exploited.

Scene Three:
What do you do if you think you’re compromised? Undo what the attackers did and secure your site from further abuse.

It is vital that you remove all added backdoors from your site and take action to prevent further attacks. These two steps are a lot easier than most people think, but you can not be lazy about them. First, check your site’s files for changes and file modifications. If you find anything that doesn’t belong there you need to disable/quarantine/remove it! Be sure to double-check that all of your sites’ software has been upgraded to the latest versions so known security holes are closed. Finally, Don’t forget to make sure you change your passwords (FTP, SSH, MySQL) too, just in case those may have been compromised as well.

What’s that? Your site has over 1,000 files and you want the site’s web master to check them all? Oh my!

You can tackle two problems at once, backups and security with the following tip. If a site is worth spending 10 minutes writing content for, then you should keep a backup of your site on your home/office computer. This backup will not only help you to get your site back online after almost any disaster, it will also help you identify any changes the attackers made to your site!

How? Well, since you’re now a savvy website owner who keeps clean and secure backups locally, you can download the “compromised” version of your site and use file comparison software* to compare it to a clean version to see exactly what has changed. You’ll also be better prepared for a possible “cyber forensics” role in the next episode of CSI…

*(search online for “compare directories” plus your operating system of choice and you will find tons of options!)

By now your site should be secure (knock on wood) so you can place it back online knowing the bad guys have less nodes to attack other websites and servers from. If you haven’t already though, please contact our support staff and let us know that you think you’ve been hacked. Our security team will then run a basic scan on your site’s files, and if we see any insecure software or have any known backdoors running on your site we will let you know!

When we sponsored WordCamp San Francisco this year we didn’t expect to be doing the same thing in our own backyard less than a month later!

The truth is we were so overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of the WordPress community in San Francisco that when we learned WordCamp LA was looking for sponsors, we jumped at the chance! Literally! I jumped up in the air.

Looking back on things I guess jumping around was kind of a strange reaction to have…but that’s how we feel about WordPress and its vibrant community of developers, designers, and users over here!

You make us push ourselves skyward with our legs! Be proud.

DreamHost is proud to be a Platinum sponsor of WordCamp LA 2011, taking place THIS WEEKEND on the Loyola Marymount University campus.

If you’ll be at WordCamp LA keep your eyes peeled for anyone wearing a DreamHost shirt – we’re anxious to meet you and can’t wait to hear your stories!