A screenshot of Reality Check's website, still down as of Tuesday morning.
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — A web hosting provider that had suggested a recent outage might have been the work of a former employee has retracted the claim, as it passes affected customers on to other hosting providers, according to a report posted Tuesday by the Inquirer.
A server outage Monday at Reality Check Network caught the attention of several online publications as it resulted in downtime for a selection of Bittorrent tracking websites. In conversation with the Inquierer, the company’s CEO Moisey Uretsky suggested that the outage had been the result of a “malicious attack,” a corruption of master boot records conducted by an ex-employee with intimate knowledge of the company’s network.
Reality check’s own website is down as a result of the outage, which was ongoing as of Tuesday morning.
In Tuesday’s report, the Inquirer says it was contacted by the ex-employee in question, who demonstrated that he left the company on good terms, with a letter of reference from Uretsky.
The CEO subsequently confirmed that the downtime was not caused by an ex-employee, and that he had been assured by the specific ex-employee in question that he was not involved.
Uretsky says he has filed a report with the FBI and will be looking to the feds to conduct an investigation.
As the Inquirer report points out, the prospect of FBI involvement is unlikely to be welcome news for those customers operating torrent tracking sites, given the frequent attempts to prosecute such sites for their tangential association with acts of copyright infringement.
The report also says that RCN has contacted customers to inform them that hosting provider ISPrime will be taking over the services for customers that were hacked. In the email to customers, Uretsky reportedly wrote that the restoration process was taking too long, and that the level of damage caused in the attack had been too great.
About Liam Eagle
Liam Eagle has worked as a contributor to the Web Host Industry Review since its inception in 2000, and as editor since 2003. He has been editor of the WHIR's print magazine since its launch. His daily involvement in the gathering and reporting of Web hosting news and his regular interaction with Web hosting leaders gives him an uncommonly broad appreciation of the issues and tends facing the business. Through his WHIR blog, Liam spots Web hosting trends and offers opinions on the industry-wide impacts of major developments and the motivation behind big announcements. Follow him on Twitter @liameagle
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