Web hosting service DreamHost has leaked a staggering 814 million customer records, including WordPress admin information.
DreamHost is one of the biggest and most popular web hosting services, with some 1.5 million sites. Security researcher Jeremiah Fowler, in connection with Website Planet, found an unprotected database containing records for the time period between 3/24/2018 to 4/16/2021.
According to Fowler, the database contains sensitive information, including admin information for WordPress sites.
The exposed records revealed usernames, display names, and emails for WordPress accounts. The monitoring and file logs exposed many internal records that should not have been publicly accessible. They were structured as roles, ID, display name, email, and other account related information.
There’s still much unknown about the leak, including how long the data was available, who else may have accessed it and whether DreamHost has notified customers. DreamHost did, however, acknowledge the leak and has passed it to their legal team.
Neal Mueller, Security and Networking lead for Google Cloud, recently was interviewed about security and other important aspects of using the Google Cloud Platform to host websites, online retailers and other data intensive applications.
Should I move our online applications to the cloud and is it secure?
We get that question less and less these days. There are big advantages to moving to the cloud. You get to have all of the scale that you want immediately when you want it. You don’t pay for it when you don’t use it. And you don’t have to worry about the maintenance of the underlying machines. The advantages are so big, in fact, that we seldom get the question of, should I move to the cloud? More often, the question that we get is, how can I move to the cloud safely?
Where does Google’s responsibility for security begin?
It’s simple. Google’s responsibility is to control the underlying infrastructure. Your responsibility is to secure the data on top.
Why use Google as a cloud provider?
One of the reasons that we talk about a lot is that Google is the right cloud provider for you because we’ve got over 500 security engineers. These are 500 people that are foremost in their fields. They’ve been in peer-reviewed journals, they’re experts at security.
Let me give you an example of just one team within the 500. It’s called Project Zero. These are forward-facing engineers whose job it is to discover 0-Days, that is, new vulnerabilities, never before seen or disclosed. They discovered Heartbleed, which affects anybody with a browser. It’s a TLS vulnerability. They discovered rowhammer, which affects anybody that has a computer with RAM and they discovered 15 of the last 21 KVM vulnerabilities, which is really important to Google because we use KVM as our chosen hypervisor technology. All of these vulnerabilities, as soon as we discover them, we immediately disclose them so that the world is a safer place thanks to the work of Project Zero.
Can you tell us more about this?
Let’s talk about the word provenance. It’s a word in English that means come from. It’s a fundamental tenet of how we think of secure systems. We don’t just buy hardware that’s off the shelf. We return to first principles, figure out what functionality we need from the hardware and which ones we don’t, because functionality that’s included in the hardware off the shelf might introduce vulnerabilities that we don’t want. This leads us in many cases to custom-build secure systems. So we have custom-built ASICs, custom-built servers, custom-built racks, custom-built storage arrays inside custom-built data centers. All of this leads to a much more secure data center.
Infrastructure security, doesn’t that go beyond hardware?
Sure. It extends to the people inside that data center, too. These are full-time, badged Googlers that have submitted to a background check and have an array of physical security to make their job easier. We’re talking about stuff that you’ve seen in “Mission Impossible”– biometrics, lasers, vehicle barriers, bollards. All of this is custom-built, also, to make the data center more secure.
So is this unique to just Google?
Yeah, it’s unique to Google, but not for long. Part of being Google is giving back to your community. So as part of the Open Compute Project, just last week with Facebook, we released our design for a 48-volt rack. This is a very high-density, highly efficient, highly green rack. And although Google is the only one that can build it, now that everybody has the designs, everybody can build data centers as efficient.
What other cool stuff is Google Cloud doing?
What’s next? So with 500 security engineers on staff, there’s a lot that’s up next. But let me tell you about just two things that spring to mind. The first one is BeyondCorp. Here, we have separated ourself from the traditional enterprise security model. Traditional enterprise security has a hard firewall to guard the perimeter. However, we’ve seen what happens with recent breaches– what happens when an adversary gets inside that perimeter. He has relatively unfettered access to the resources inside the internet. What Google does is device authentication which allows our applications to be accessible by the internet, but be just as secure as if they were only accessible by the intranet. We believe that this makes our public cloud more secure.
What’s the second initiative?
On Google Cloud Platform, data at rest is encrypted by default. This is a real differentiator for us. We believe it’s good practice and good business. We’ve seen what happens when adversaries get a hold of breached PII and we think that encryption by default is a good preventative measure against that.
GoDaddy announced on Tuesday that it has acquired Media Temple, a web hosting and cloud services company based in Los Angeles. GoDaddy says the acquisition will give it direct access to Media Temple’s “hosting gurus”. These, the company says, will “share knowledge and insight” about GoDaddy with developers and web professionals.
Media Temple will continue to operate as a separate company, but GoDaddy says the acquisition will help it grow and further expand internationally.
GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving said, “The people at Media Temple ‘get’ Web pros and developers … that alone is a tremendous asset for us. While we gain Media Temple’s insight, we also reach a more technical audience than GoDaddy has served historically. Having done our homework with a deep customer segmentation, we understand there are vastly different needs on the customer continuum between a small business and a developer. We love that (mt) pursues their business their own way and we’re committed to make sure that continues under the (mt) brand.”
“Blake’s vision to transform GoDaddy and build bridges into the creative community was very attractive to me,” said Demian Selfors, co-founder of Media Temple. “The commitment to maintain Media Temple’s autonomy was equally imperative. know Media Temple is heading in the right direction as the company looks to expand its brand and help more people around the world.”
Media Temple president Russell Reeder will continue on in that role.
“We are built precisely with developers in mind and we know we can make a difference in guiding GoDaddy toward better Web pro services, functionality and communication,” he said. “This is an exciting time for our company and a reaffirmation of the Web design-oriented culture we have built at Media Temple.”
This is the sixth acquisition for GoDaddy in the past 15 months, following Outright, M.Dot, Locu, Afternic and Ronin. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Tracking the actions of a group like Anonymous can be a tricky proposition, mainly because Anonymous is less like a “group” and more like a loose coalition of like-minded hackers. But according to the claims of some internet denizens identifying themselves with Anonymous, they have launched a campaign against an online child pornography ring that consists of over 40 different sites.
They are calling this operation #OpDarknet, and apparently have taken down Freedom Hosting, providers of free hidden web hosting. Anonymous found that Freedom Hosting was hosting a variety of child porn sites on the Tor network, a system that is used to enable anonymity online.
Earlier this month, the folks behind #OpDarknet discovered a section on the Hidden Wiki called “Hard Candy,” any found that is was full of links to child pornography. They took down the links, only to find that they had been restored 5 minutes later. They then discovered that 95% of all the child porn on the list could be traced to one provider: Freedom Hosting. Here’s what happened next, as told by Anonymous:
At apprx 9:00pm CST on October 14, 2011 We identified Freedom Hosting as the host of the largest collection of child pornography on the internet. We then issued a warning to remove the illegal content from their server, which they refused to do.
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At apprx 11:30pm CST on October 14, 2011 We infiltrated the shared hosting server of Freedom Hosting and shutdown services to all clients due to their lack of action to remove child pornography from their server.
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At apprx 5:00pm CST on October 15, 2011 Freedom Hosting installed their backups and restored services to their child pornography clients. We then issued multiple warnings to remove all child pornography from their servers, which Freedom Hosting refused to do.
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At apprx 8:00pm CST on October 15, 2011 despite new security features, we once again infiltrated the shared hosting server at Freedom Hosting and stopped service to all clients.
Anonymous not only shut down the sites, but exposed login details from more than 1,500 users, many who were tied to the most popular site of the bunch, Lolita City.
Here’s their mission statement, as it pertains to #OpDarknet:
The owners and operators at Freedom Hosting are openly supporting child pornography and enabling pedophiles to view innocent children, fueling their issues and putting children at risk of abduction, molestation, rape, and death.
For this, Freedom Hosting has been declared #OpDarknet Enemy Number One.
By taking down Freedom Hosting, we are eliminating 40+ child pornography websites, among these is Lolita City, one of the largest child pornography websites to date containing more than 100GB of child pornography.
We will continue to not only crash Freedom Hosting’s server, but any other server we find to contain, promote, or support child pornography.
That’s the official version of events. Here’s a little more entertaining depiction of how it went down, according to another Anonymous release on pastebin –
We broke down the heavily fortified door of the Pedo fort. We cocked THOR and fired Nyan Nyan bullets in every direction. After a bloody battle with trolls, pedos, and pedo bear, we Anonymous became victorious. What was left of pedo fort, pedo bear, and fellow pedos was a 100 mile hole. Lolita City and it’s neighboring 40+ pedo strongholds were destroyed.
And this video statement takes the same kind of tone, saying that they armed themselves with their “Chris Hansen cannons” to take down the child porn ring.
Anonymous is best known for their attacks on corporations and governmental secrecy, and this is a bit of a departure for the group. If you check the Twitter chatter and YouTube comments for the above video, you’ll see that most people are both impressed and thankful for this operation.
Not everyone thinks it’s a great idea, however. Graham Cluley of Sophos said that “their intentions may have been good, but take-downs of illegal websites and sharing networks should be done by the authorities, not internet vigilantes.”
Maybe Anonymous did something that the authorities were unable to do or they simply did it faster. What do you think? Is this AnonOp something you support? Let us know in the comments.
Google has announced that it’s expanded its Services for Websites program in which hosting companies integrate Google services into their platforms, to include Parallels, a provider of control panel software for hosting companies. Parallels will integrate Google Services for Websites into the new version of its Plesk Panel, a platform Google says millions of site-owners use to manage their sites.
This may work to get a lot of site-owners using Google products that they weren’t necessarily using before, and in theory could help their visibility, traffic, and revenue in the long run.
"Website owners generate more traffic to their websites by optimizing them using Webmaster Tools," says Google Search Group Product Manager Rajat Mukherjee. "They can engage their users with inline Web Elements, including maps, news, videos and conversations. Custom Search and Site Search provide Google-quality search on their websites for better user retention. AdSense helps website owners monetize their sites with relevant advertising. And besides providing these valuable services to millions of customers, hosting companies can also generate additional revenues through referral programs."
This also marks the first commercial control panel to offer Google Services for Websites, allowing the hosting companies to monetize the services, according to Parallels. "These significant updates enable shared hosting companies to generate new revenue streams and deliver better services to their small business customers," says Parallels President Jack Zubarev.
Google Services for Websites was announced last year. Other partners include DomainHost, GoDaddy, FatCow, Aplus.net, and about 15 others. Such partnerships provide hosting providers with a few bells and whistles to offer their customers.
Domain name registrar and web hosting provider GoDaddy appears to be really making a name for itself based on controversial Super Bowl ads. In fact, one could ponder whether or not the general public would have such a distinct idea of what GoDaddy even is, if it were not for its Super Bowl controversies. Something tells me that’s just fine with GoDaddy. The company seems to feed off this stuff.
This year, GoDaddy says it has a new ad that was banned from the Super Bowl, even though the company finds it perhaps even less objectionable than some of its past ads.
"Of the five commercial concepts we submitted for approval this year, this NEVER would’ve been my pick for the one that would not be approved," says Go Daddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons. "This is about a guy who starts an online business and hits the jackpot. I just don’t think ‘Lola’ is offensive, in fact we didn’t see this one coming – we were absolutely blindsided!"
The ad can be viewed below:
"We’ve accepted we have to go with another option – one that’s been approved and one that is still 100 percent GoDaddy-esque," says Parsons. It remains to be seen just what that will be, but GoDaddy is not wasting "Lola", as it is promoting the ad heavily online.
The company points out that another controversial ad with a political message, starring Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow will be airing. GoDaddy essentially says that its Lola ad is less controversial than that.
One has to wonder if this is just GoDaddy just trying to get some attention, but if that is the case, it has worked. The company at least knows something about getting videos to go viral.
Do you feel that the GoDaddy Lola ad is too offensive (or offensive at all, for that matter) for the Super Bowl? Share your thoughts below.
