Problems with Namesco?

I think they've been hacked, anyone else had any issues this morning?

Seems I've had code altered and a script injected into my website, thankfully I caught it fairly quickly as I'm working on it at the moment. Definately not my PC as the site's mirrored elsewhere and that copy is fine.

Their control panel was haywire yesterday as well.

Tried phoning them this morning, but there's 14 people in the queue and I'm not waiting that long, so I'm guessing I'm not the only one with issues!

Definately something going on.

Whenever I normally call them there's a maximum of 2-3 in the queue.

Tried phoning again a couple of times, first time it just rang without even getting into the queue, second time I was in position 20.

If you have anything hosted with them, go double check it now...

Well they've really and truly managed to screw up their Zeus server.

I've got contact forms using mail() that were working fine yesterday (and still work fine on other hosting) that now only work in FF and Chrome?!? Damn good job I log every contact to a database before it gets sent and if mail() doesn't work mark it as failed.

Still can't get through on the phone, 17 people in the queue a minute ago, sent a support ticket in but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for an answer!

Network status page shows no problems, apart from this -

Please be advised that access to the File Manager tool located within the Namesco control panel is currently unavailable due to routine maintenance. Customers wishing to use the built in file Manager tool are advised to use FTP while this work is carried out. We will update this notice with further information in due course.

'routine maintenance' my bottom, they've either been hacked or someone has really screwed up somewhere.

Not something I expect from one of the more expensive hosting companies, took them too long to work out they had problems and way too long fixing it

Hate the Zeus control panel anyway, so time for a move I think.

/rant

If you are thinking of moving, have a look at NetHosted. They don't have phone support, but replies to tickets and posts in their forums are usually replied to in minutes! The most I have waited for a response is under 2 hours. This is 24/7 at its best.

I have an account with them for a few other sites that I host already (and incidently, where I test sites and everything works fine!), never had a problem and as you said, they always seem to be on the ball.

Trouble is, I've just done a major update to the site and it's serving a lot more data than it used to and I'm not totally sure of the bandwidth requirements, may have to leave it a month to see how things pan out before I choose another host. May go for a VPS on NetHosted, but not sure I'd want to go unmanaged and £20 for managed is a bit OTT imo.

We have a client who is suffering from the same issue.

It adds an encoded peice of javascript which injects a modified version of jquery onto your site from an external source. It adds this javascript just above the BODY tag on every html page you have in your file system.

I started by purging the malicious code from each page and resetting the FTP password. The site is a flat html site and has no php or cgi scripts.

However I setup some automatic monitoring to check for future changes and have just been alerted. The malicious code is back.

I think the linux hosting server we are on is being mistreated and as they have several, it isn't effecting all people, only those sharing the same machine.

I'm not sure how namesco runs their webservers, but it's worth checking to see if setting your file privs to 604 works

In reply to a post by Stalks:

I started by purging the malicious code from each page and resetting the FTP password. The site is a flat html site and has no php or cgi scripts.

However I setup some automatic monitoring to check for future changes and have just been alerted. The malicious code is back.

Sounds as if the server is compromised .

Thanks for the heads up.

Have just checked and everything seems fine, will keep a close eye on it.

Wish they'd just hold their hands up to it, noone there will admit to a problem. A few weeks back they cancelled all FTP access until passwords were changed, so I'm guessing they knew something dodgy had been going on.

If it hasn't been done already, change the FTP password.

Well, they've finally held their hands up to 'unauthorised content' appearing on peoples sites, only about a month late.

Not sure what the 'Serve360 Hosting' is (old hosting company they swallowed up?), never heard of it and certainly didn't sign up to it as we're on the Business+ hosting.

Their FTP is down at the moment as well, I think that's the final nail in the coffin for this bunch...

Edited by SamsonUK (Tue 21-Apr-09 11:00:09)

Now I know it's been a while since this thread was started but I'm going to post anyway...

I've had the above issues with Namesco 3 times (!) in the past 12 months. I have a reseller hosting package with Names and I host about 45 websites with them.

And I've had a good handful of those hacked with malicious code - and once, every website was hacked in one night.

Namesco have always blamed us - they say the compromise was from within my office and that one of the PC's with FTP access has a virus. However I since found out that there's no way it could be the 'FTP PC' (as we call it in the office) - it's checked every day for virus's and spyware using 4 different systems - Kaspersky, Norton, SecuniaPSI and Malware Bytes. That PC accesses all 45 of our Names domains, as well as over a hundred other websites that aren't hosted by Names. And yet it's always Names-hosted websites that are hacked.

I tried to point this out to Names and they were very rude about it - I wasn't treated like a paying customer at all. And in fact, when I complained that I'd also had trouble getting through on the phone all day, the woman slipped up by saying that "we've had hundreds of calls today from customers with this Hacked problem which is why you couldn't get through."

My fault then? Obviously not! They can't even get their story straight.

Namesco aren't the same company they were when I first joined back in 2004. They are under new ownership and no longer care about their customers.

Do avoid, if you want to keep your website - and therefore your office - virus-free.

Meantime, I now have to transfer 45 domain names and websites to another reseller hosting company. Can anyone recommend one!?

If the malicious code was JS, these are often inserted by insecure scripts, possibly owned by other users on the server.

Unless they have provided you the logs showing your account was 'hacked' by FTP from your IP address, I'd take that with a pinch of salt!

Matt

Yes I know, they are full of bull...

And incidentally, the very first time I was hacked, about a year ago, they blamed me for having an easy to hack password... My password was a 21 digit, upper-and-lowercase password using numbers and even an exclamation mark in it.

They actually seem to think I'm a monkey that has no idea how the internet, or hosting, works. Being patronised and insulted by some 17-year-old 'tech support' schoolboy is the nail in their coffin as far as I'm concerned - they'll no longer be getting £600 a year from me.

In reply to a post by Reverend2010:

Meantime, I now have to transfer 45 domain names and websites to another reseller hosting company. Can anyone recommend one!?

I would give serious consideration to Nethosted. Even though they don't have telephone support, tickets are answered within an hour, and they work to clear any problem - even to helping with coding problems.
Head over to their forums to see many satisfied customers!

I have had a reseller account with them for a couple of years now, although I only have a dozen domains, and I am delighted with the service I have had from them.

Thanks I will definitely check them out. I've also been looking at Heart Internet... Their features list is pretty amazing and they are a good price, but I have no idea what they are like.

Anyone with experience of Heart Internet's reseller package?

Post deleted by billford

Hello Reverend2010

I'm sorry to hear of your frustration. The company that you're describing - a company that doesn't care about it's customers and is constantly rude to them - doesn't sound at all like the company I know. As you may know, we've won the 'Best UK Shared Hosting' ISPA award for two years running now (as a trawl through the historical news articles of this site should tell you) and I doubt we would have won those if we treated customers in the manner in which you're describing.

With regards to the FTP compromises you're talking about, we provide a facility where you can disable FTP in your online control panel, which would completely nullify this sort of attack. You can go in and temporarily enable whenever you need to update your site and then disable it again after.

We've also increased the intensity of our monitoring scripts and we'll disable FTP for you as soon as we see any suspicious activity with your username, such as multiple logins from different IP addresses, or if one of the files on our blocked filename list gets uploaded.

There are other hosting companies who disable FTP across the board at 0:00 each night - we did briefly consider that but decided against it as it would inconvenience too many customers. If we didn't care about our customers we would have just set that in place.

It certainly sounds like you've done all the usual things that we suggest. Please try disabling FTP on your domains and, if this happens again even with FTP disabled, let us know and link to this thread in your email.

Try 1and1, they have phone and ticket support and are quick to react.

In reply to a post by namesco:

I'm sorry to hear of your frustration. The company that you're describing - a company that doesn't care about it's customers and is constantly rude to them - doesn't sound at all like the company I know.

Well I'd like to know what department you work in because not only is that the experience I've had with Customer Services and Tech Support, I've had the same experience on more than one occasion.

Also, I've put a few people onto Namesco in the past (people for one reason or another I didn't want to host myself) and one of them has had some awful things to tell me about how she was treated by Tech Support. She's not good at all when it comes to anything techy but she was treated like an inconvenience by Tech Support and fobbed off with misleading information.

So, I'm sorry 'namesco' but I do not agree that your company looks after it's customers. I've had more cause to complain to Names in the past 2 years than to any other supplier I've used in the 12 years my company has been trading.

In reply to a post by Reverend2010:

Meantime, I now have to transfer 45 domain names and websites to another reseller hosting company. Can anyone recommend one!?

I can heartily recommend Tsohost from my experience so far. I'm not using their reseller package (yet), just Pro hosting, but every ticket I have raised has been answered satisfactorily within 5 minutes. Now that is real support.

http://www.tsohost.co.uk/reseller-hosting.php

P.S. I used Namesco in a former life, and before that Simply Names, whom they took over, and I found that service was generally good, but tended to deteriorate as they got bigger, a common problem I fear.

Edited by kasg (Mon 29-Mar-10 19:18:21)

I've decided Names are liars. And I challenge "Namesco", who posted above, to respond to my accusation.

I just stumbled upon a website, and look at the posts about Names: http://hostjury.com/reviews/namesco

They all have had the EXACT same experience as I have. So similar in fact that I'm thinking about legal action. And I'm quite serious.

Namesco, respond.

In reply to a post by Reverend2010:

Meantime, I now have to transfer 45 domain names and websites to another reseller hosting company. Can anyone recommend one!?

Well as per at least 2 other posts I would recommend NetHosted, Andrew and Darryl are BOTH members on here and they have a special deal for TBB users (listed as ADSLGuide, the old name for this site).... which I am on and have recently recommended to a friend.. (the link is accessable to anyone.. ) I only use shared hosting, but the support is TOPNOTCH and I cannot fault them, infact after leaving to try a "free" host, I moved back and paid for another year!

In reply to a post by Reverend2010:

I've decided Names are liars. And I challenge "Namesco", who posted above, to respond to my accusation.

I just stumbled upon a website, and look at the posts about Names: http://hostjury.com/reviews/namesco

They all have had the EXACT same experience as I have. So similar in fact that I'm thinking about legal action. And I'm quite serious.

Namesco, respond.

No response then, Namesco? Funny that. And there was you saying how wrong I was about you! Idiots.