There’s been another data breach. This time, it affects major domain registrar GoDaddy. Reports suggest that the breach affects SSH Access on Hosting.
The world of domain name registration is no doubt abuzz today. This is because major domain name registrar, GoDaddy, has become the latest victim of a data breach. GoDaddy, of course, is known for their extravagant marketing including various race sponsorship’s like NASCAR and what some would call racy television advertising.
Now, GoDaddy is showing a side it no doubt hoped would never actually come into existence ever: a data breach. A ZDNet report says that people’s files may have been accessed by an unauthorized third party:
GoDaddy on Tuesday reported [PDF] an October data breach to Californian authorities, stating that an unauthorised individual was able to access SSH accounts used in its hosting environment.
“We have no evidence that any files were added or modified on your account,” the company said while omitting evidence that files could have been viewed and exfiltrated.
“The unauthorized individual has been blocked from our systems, and we continue to investigate potential impact across our environment.”
GoDaddy said the breach did not impact the “main GoDaddy.com customer account” and that any information within that account was not accessed.
GoDaddy says that passwords have been reset and that affected customers will receive a one year anti-virus service for free. The service is common among big name web hosting companies. It essentially scans hosted websites for viruses and vulnerabilities. GoDaddy also recommends that customers audit their hosting accounts.
While the number of affected users is unclear, what is known is that GoDaddy has roughly 19 million customers. It’s worth pointing out that there are accounts that have been unaffected by the breach. Still, this is probably one point in history that GoDaddy hopes will simply be whisked away into the dustbin of history sooner rather than later.
May has started the security incidences with a bang already. Yesterday, we reported on the Webkinz data breach. In that one, 23 million accounts were reportedly compromised. With this latest data breach, it seems likely that this month will, unfortunately, be as interesting as last month.
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
