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InterWorx admits password security FAIL led to attack on users

Change up

Web-hosting administration outfit InterWorx has warned users to change their passwords following a deep penetrating hack attack.

The assault on the firm's support desk database exposed users' login credentials because the support desk software was storing email and password data in plain text. Users were strongly advised to change their passwords on any site they accessed using the same login credentials as they used with InterWorx.

The compromise – which ran between 28 February and 5 March – gave hackers admin control of websites administered through InterWorx, a facility they soon set about abusing in order to distribute malware.

In a notice warning of the breach, InterWorx warns that a "few clients" have had their servers "modified to distribute malware javascript, as a direct result of this attack".

InterWorx apologised for the breach in an email sent to users on Thursday and forwarded to El Reg. Breaches at web service firms that result in requests to change up passwords are far from unusual. The InterWorx breach is on the serious end of such breaches; the only silver lining is that its billing portal was run off a separate, segregated server and not hit by the attack.

The web-hosting services firm has promised a full security review in the wake of the incident.

US-based InterWorx provides a web-hosting control panel that is designed to make work easier for website administrators. The technology incorporates high-availability clustered features absent from some competing services. ®

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