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Web hosting company confirms hack attack

Interland says it was the victim of a hack attack in late August and early September, but it remains mum about the details.

Jim Hu Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Jim Hu
covers home broadband services and the Net's portal giants.
Jim Hu
Web hosting company Interland confirmed on Friday that it was the victim of a hack attack in late August and early September, but it remains mum about the details.

Interland first noticed occurrences on Aug. 28 and 29, when certain visitors to some of its hosted sites were redirected to an undisclosed Web page. More signs of the attack appeared after Labor Day weekend, but as of Sept. 4, the company said, it had contained the attack.

Interland remained quiet about the nature of the attack, saying it was neither malicious software spread into its servers nor a compromise of the company's domain name system. The company added that the attack was not from an internal source.

"It was a configuration in our infrastructure that allowed someone with the right opportunity or knowledge to affect how some Web sites were presented," said Jeff Reich, director of information, security and control at Interland. "It didn't affect any information or data" within Web sites hosted by the company.

Reich declined to comment on what visitors saw when they were redirected to the third-party site.

Interland hosts different levels of Web operations for small-size companies. The company sells tiers of services that range from hosting Web sites and e-mail to Web page design. Interland also has partnerships with commercial search company Overture and Google to offer Web search submissions and allows some clients to host Amazon merchandise on their sites.

A company representative said the attack had no relationship with the MSBlast worm.