SeizerStyle Designs takes the security of our websites and those of our clients very seriously. Over the past few weeks we have taken many steps to reinforce our security practices to ensure the integrity of all websites under our control. Your website is your online identity and should be treated as importantly as your offline reputation.
The Problem
Over the past few months the company that we host many of our websites with has been experiencing some security problems. Malicious attacks on the company’s servers resulted in certain security vulnerabilities being exploited.Some of our websites especially those based on blogging software were affected and we found unauthorized code in some files on the server. While we were investigating and fixing the problems with the affected websites, and taking precautionary measures to make sure no other websites were affected, some of our websites may have gone offline or malfunctioned for a period of time.
The Solution
These security breaches resulted in a few changes and recommendations from our host on how to better secure our websites on the server. We have followed the recommended steps as well as implementing steps of our own. All websites with offending code were deleted and rebuilt from local backups that did not contain the unauthorized code. This blog was also affected and is now fully functional once again. We have been monitoring all our websites for any signs of the problems reoccurring and have so far found none.
Security is an important issue and there are constantly people coming up with new ways to exploit vulnerabilities and gain unauthorized access to files. Even though no confidential data was accessed, and only public files affected, this is still a very serious problem. We are currently exploring various options to ensure that this does not happen again or to have a contingency plan in case it does. We apologize to all visitors and clients who were affected by the downtime and thank you for your cotinued support of SeizerStyle Designs.
Last Updated on September 3, 2014 by Nathan Vidal