Site hacked

[daveob]

I see your point and agree with a lot of what you say, BUT ....

We have a fairly large knowledge base with everything the clients need to manage their hosting account, but we still get the support calls & tickets.

I run a business, and when my web site or server or mail server or apache or mySQL or FTP or PHP code goes wrong, I am not interested in spending 30 to 60 frustrating minutes searching a knowledgebase with a minute hope of finding the correct solution - when my day goes pear shaped, I pick up the phone and call technical support -- PRONTO -- that's human nature.

The only thing I have found that helps my clients ( some quite PC illiterate ) is I direct them to my web site, click on a link and use RemoteView to connect to their screen - then I can take them through the steps one-by-one and they can see what I'm doing - often a lot faster than trying to talk them through it on the phone.

Yes sir - Click on the button - Yes, with the right button - the one on the mouse, no, a single click. Click on the Start button - no, on the screen - yes, with the mouse - the right mouse button. It's at the bottom left corner of the screen ...... and just pray you don't have to ask them to use ctrl-alt-del ...... and my wife wonders why I'm almost bald !!

[SilverNodashi]

I see your point and agree with a lot of what you say, BUT ....



I run a business, and when my web site or server or mail server or apache or mySQL or FTP or PHP code goes wrong, I am not interested in spending 30 to 60 frustrating minutes searching a knowledgebase with a minute hope of finding the correct solution - when my day goes pear shaped, I pick up the phone and call technical support -- PRONTO -- that's human nature.

The only thing I have found that helps my clients ( some quite PC illiterate ) is I direct them to my web site, click on a link and use RemoteView to connect to their screen - then I can take them through the steps one-by-one and they can see what I'm doing - often a lot faster than trying to talk them through it on the phone.

Yes sir - Click on the button - Yes, with the right button - the one on the mouse, no, a single click. Click on the Start button - no, on the screen - yes, with the mouse - the right mouse button. It's at the bottom left corner of the screen ...... and just pray you don't have to ask them to use ctrl-alt-del ...... and my wife wonders why I'm almost bald !!

Dave, I'm not sure what your setup is, but on a shred hosting server (like in the OP's case) you should have to worry about the web, FTP, SQL, or mailserver. You should be worried about, and focusing on your website. Your ISP (normally) takes care of issues directly related to the server software. I know our techs sort out technical things like this before the client even knows about it.

If the case is a serious one, which may take longer, then we email our clients about it.

Your own PHP code, however, is still your own responsibility as client. If you're not a PHP developer then you normally hire / employ one. If the ISP happen to offer this as a service and you make use of them, then it's stil your responsibility. Almost always, the development team is a different department from the server admins team, and treated as 2 different business entities. Think of your car dealer. Although VW / BMW / Mazda / Mercedes / etc sell you the car, they also have a garage to repair it. When, say the radiator breaks, you need to take it in (or in this case get towed in), and deal with the service / parts department with this regard. The sale team has nothing todo with. The same with an ISP that has web developers as well. When you have an issue with your website, you contact your web developer. The web developer will then (normally) contact the ISP (whether it's the same ISP or not doesn't make a difference) and sort out any technical issues they may have with the server admins.


The knowledge base that I was referring to is not intended for this use. It's more aimed at the end user to equip him with the tools he needs, free of charge to run his website / hosting account. We, or anyone else for that matter, is not forced / obliged to have these resources available, but it helps to teach the end-user something and lighten the help desk's load.

But from your response, and past experience, it's clear that some people simply don't want to learn new things. They want to be, and insist on being, spoon fed. Now, I ask you this, as research, do you feel it's your ISP's responsibility to "spoon feed" you? Do you feel they have todo everything for you?
Or, do you feel it's their responsibility to teach you, free of charge, everything there is to know about the internet?



On a side note, here's an interesting article: http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Internet/11242.html

[tec0]

Is there a possibility that VPN along with an Intranet and host to user inscription be implemented so that the control panel is only accessible on the intranet? See you have a lot more control.

[SilverNodashi]

Is there a possibility that VPN along with an Intranet and host to user inscription be implemented so that the control panel is only accessible on the intranet? See you have a lot more control.

Sure, why not? But I doubt if you're going to find a host who will setup a VPN for every client on a shared hosting server. The amount of additional resources (RAM / CPU & labor) needed todo this is simple too expensive for a R15pm / R50pm account.

Another way of doing it is to allow SSH access (then the client can use SFTP / FTP-over-SSH) but then they open up the servers to possible hacking and other unwanted problems.

We setup all our cPanel servers to only use the SSL ports for cPanel & webmail access, and each one has a commercial SSL certificate as well, so the clients don't get warnings about untrusted SSL certificates - which in itself is very confusing for most people.

So, at least when a client connects to his control panel, it will be on an encrypted channel. But that still won't stop a brute force attack, or keyloggers.

[SilverNodashi]

Here's something you could use to warn you in future: http://binarycanary.com/en/feature-t...monitoring.cfm