Glaswegian

A highly damaging hack at UK-based web hosting company VAserv has taken a tragic turn for the worse after it was revealed that the boss of the Indian firm whose software was at the centre the attack, has hanged himself.

On Sunday, VAserv suffered a malicious attack on its virtual server infrastructure, which resulted in the deletion of approximately 100,000 sites.

According to the Register, the attackers apparently took advantage of security flaws in a virtualisation software platform called HyperVM, in order to break into the company's servers and issue commands to erase all of the contents hosted on them. The hackers appeared to have accessed customer credit card data and other information stored on the compromised servers.

VAserv offers low-cost web hosting services using virtualised private servers based on HyperVM. Unfortunately, it appears that many of its customers have irretrievably lost data, as backups do not seem to have being taken.

HyperVM is the virtualisation application made by LXLabs, an Indian based in Bangalore.

In the wake of the exploitation of a critical vulnerability in HyperVM, LXLabs' boss, K T Ligesh, hanged himself in a case of suspected suicide.

32 year-old Ligesh was found hanged in his Bangalore house on Monday morning, after a late night drinking session. The Times of India reports that he was upset with the loss of a recent contract. Ligesh was also still coming to terms with the suicides, also by hanging, of his sister and mother five years ago.

The news is a sobering development, especially as it is not clear whether the servers had been compromised because of vulnerabilities in HyperVM, as VAserv claims, or whether weak administrator passwords were to blame, as posted by the Inquisitr. The site links to a post, ostensibly by someone behind the attack, that talks about it having been facilitated by "excessive passwd reuse."


http://www.techworld.com/security/ne...&NewsID=117342

Mcninjaguy

Poor guy, but computers aren't unbreakable!
Its a sad way to end a short life.

TJ Belfiore

That's very unfortunate. I think the hackers should be charged with murder now, since they were the main cause of his death, in my opinion.

Mcninjaguy

no the hackers are not associated with his death at all.

TJ Belfiore

Yeah because hacking the guy didn't encourage his suicide...

myauchandesu

That's very sad. It's really unfortunate when people do this kind of things.

Mcninjaguy

The hacker's didn't encourage anything except their own money grabbing illegal activities. I'm not saying what the hackers did shouldn't be condoned, its just that the CEO seemed stressed out and its too bad he didn't get help so he wouldn't commit suicide.

TJ Belfiore

It is too bad he didn't sooner get help.