Businesses running theFastHosts Internet
servicewill have to change their passwords
because of a major security breach at the internet service
provider.
The company has warned users to change their main account
control panel login password, all e-mail passwords, all FTP (file
transfer protocol) passwords and all passwords for its hosted MySQL
and
Microsoft SQL Server databases.
A computer reseller affected by the breach said, " FastHost went
ahead and changed all sorts of password. Plus it says that all
e-mail passwords will have to change. All this is a terrific amount
of work for us so there must be lots of companies out there with an
awful lot of work to do."
He estimated that it would take two full days to change all the
passwords. For larger companies the impact could be worse,
particularly given that every single end user e-mail account on
every device they use will need to be changed. This could affect
desktop PCs, laptop, mobile phones that offer e-mail access, he
said.
"By forcing a password change some of the websites now fail to
work. The new passwords are being sent in the post."
In a statement issued by the company today, FastHosts said, "On
Thursday 29 November, a number of Fasthosts customers had their
Control Panel and FTP passwords automatically reset." The company
said it has now run a system-wide external security audit to remove
the vulnerability that led to the recent network intrusion.