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Google (www.google.com) said yesterday that it may pull out of China because of the increasingly threatening online environment in China following online attacks that, evidence suggests, uncovered third-parties snooping on the contents of the Gmail accounts of human rights activists. Web host Rackspace (www.rackspace.com), which was identified as one of the companies that has had a small part in the situation, has consequently become the target of media attention.
According to an article form the Wall Street Journal citing multiple sources, the attacks on Google seemed to have been launched from at least six Taiwanese Internet addresses to mask the assailants' their origins. "They also hijacked the Internet address of a San Antonio-based firm, Rackspace, which is one of the largest Internet-hosting companies in the US," the Journal notes. "They siphoned off the stolen data from Google and other companies to the San Antonio site before sending it overseas."
While Rackspace admitted that one of its servers was compromised, it was quickly disabled and the company has offered its help in investigating the cyber attack, and is fully cooperating with all affected parties. Also, no customer data at Rackspace was compromised or altered as a result of this action. A Rackspace blog entry notes that a number of media outlets have questioned it about its involvement.
"Rackspace hosts tens of thousands of websites for customers and we take every precaution to make them safe and secure," reads Rackspace's official statement. "As a hosting and cloud computing company, we run the servers and operating systems for our customer's websites, but customers run their own applications on those servers. In this case, a server at Rackspace was compromised, disabled, and we actively assisted in the investigation of the cyber attack, fully cooperating with all affected parties. Cyber attacks are a common occurrence in today's online world, and we work every day to combat them and make our servers safe for our customers."
The fact that Rackspace had to issue a statement about its lack of involvement in the attack speaks to the fact that many media organizations do not understand the relationship between hosts and their clients. A company like Rackspace would not actively promote unlawful activity, and all it can do is police its servers for abuses to the best of its ability.
Regardless, Rackspace also noted in a separate statement that it employs intrusion detection systems to identify and help prevent cyber attacks, and will "remain diligent to prevent future incidents."
Read more: theWHIR.com - Daily Web Hosting News