DOS Attack - Help!?

[Dean]

Hey,

Heres an email I recieved today:

Dear Dean,

During the last 24 hours we have detected a severe DOS attack on your website (also known as flooding). DOS attacks are usually an abnormally high number of simultaneous connections to your website resulting in service failure for your website and the host server.

Due to the severity of this attack and the negative impact it has on your site and the whole server, we had to suspend your hosting account. Unfortunately, SiteGround will no longer be able to provide your website with shared hosting services, because the DOS attack to your account is endangering the shared server performance and may result in downtime for all other customers' websites hosted on the server.

The only option to continue to have your website hosted by SiteGround is to upgrade your account to a VPS service. This upgrade can be ordered from the Extra Features section of your Customer Area.

Best regards,

SiteGround System Administrators
SiteGround.com

Im confused, im not exceeding my bandwith at all and havent had any jump in traffic but if im thinking correctly they are telling me I have to get a dedicated server costing me the same as my yearly cost every month.

Can anyone help me,
Dean

[Sergio]

If you're going to upgrade to a dedicated server then you might as well do it somewhere else.

[Dean]

I cant afford to at the moment, im more worried about my site being down and what a DOS attack is?

Ive read its a severe hack? If so is this random or has my site been hacked?

Damn, was going to bed and now it seems I have the night talking to SG support and trying to work out what to do.

Dean

[thplooy]

Maybe they can change your website's ip address.

[mcfox]

DDOS attack:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ddos

Seems to me a bit of a coincidence that you get hit with a DDOS - unless you have ticked someone off recently?

[Sergio]

If your site has anything to do with war, politics, even war games, then you should get rid of it. Some people tend to attack for those reasons.

[Greg-J]

We got on the bad side of an individual who had a slew of zombies (compromised computers these kids use to DDOS) and had a headache for quite a while.

There's tons of ways to get rid of them, but I'm not experienced enough to know any one of them. The best thing to do is know someone who has the know-how to deal with this and make them your friend.

[miller2348]

I can't tell you how to combat DOS attacks. I can only say that I had a similar problem when I was on shared hosting with bluehost. They didn't shut down my site though, they just turned if off for 10 minutes, then back on. At least that's the simple terms they told me they took on the phone.

I'm surprised a hosting company would just give you an ultimatum like that. I'd look for a new host if I were you. I'd recommend bluehost to anyone. I used them until I got to around 12k uniques daily. Never had a problem.

[atlanta]

i know a get little but about ddos attacks and most hosting companys if they have the money should have ddos firewalls installed on the connections but some choose not to my advice would be to look for a host that has this equipment

[fryman]

Damn, was going to bed and now

These things always seem to happen that way, lol
I have suffered this also, really horrible trying to fix problems when all you want to do is go to sleep

[MKInfo]

These things always seem to happen that way, lol
I have suffered this also, really horrible trying to fix problems when all you want to do is go to sleep

That is so true.Sitting in front of your screen with your eyelids tucked into your slippers http://smilies.sofrayt.com/%5E/l0/dozey.gif

Prohosters start quite cheap for a VPS.

[pimpmaspace]

Get a different host for starters. Second of all get a dedicated server, secure it, and go with a good ISP (servermatrix, layeredtech, ev1, etc... Third of all try to keep a low profile. While this DDOS attack was probably nonsense, there inconvient and a good administrator knows to avoid any sort of altercation that might result in a DDOS attack or inconvience.

[Dean]

Hey all, thanks for the interest and help.

Basically, after talking to my host they eventually agreed to put it back online (I began the "dissapointment in your service" .. then the "lack of service" lines that usually get you what you want).

They have said if another attack happens it will be down and not go back up.

Im still baffled to why my website has been attacked, I havent had any problems/altercations with anyone since the opening of my website. Except a couple of mistakes which were sorted easily and quickly, and more importantly last year.

Seems it was either a random attack, or someone has some motive I have no clue of.

Anyway, its back up and I think ill start researching a VPS. Wonder whether I can come close to my current price per year :P

Thanks again,
Dean

[minnseoelite]

Well occassionally you get those "kids" or hacking groups that just go around and pick out a random site to attack or attempt to hack just because "they can" For some reason these kids think its cool to run around messing with other peoples lives and causing headaches. I would look into a VPS or if you must go shared I would recommend hostdepartment.com, only about $7 per month, unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, no contracts (pay month to month), and accepts paypal as a payment option.

I host 5 sites with them and have for almost 2 years now and when they say unlimited they mean it I have had sites that ate up 4 Gigs of bandwidth per day not including my other 4 sites and never had any problems.

[mcfox]

Im still baffled to why my website has been attacked, I havent had any problems/altercations with anyone since the opening of my website.
Maybe it's something to do with this incident as reported on ZDNet (http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6156944.html)?

[minnseoelite]

Interesting perhaps a failed mass cyber terrorism attack

[Dean]

Aaah when I started my site I never thought id be victim of a cyber terrorist attack!

Heh, maybe it was related to that as that would explain the randomness.

As for the VPS help, thanks alot. I dont see why I would go shared at 70 dollars a year when i can pay 7 dollars a month for a VPS? Or am i missing something :)

Dean

[PGZ]

I doubt it was a DOS attack at all......MySpace Websites always have high connections to the server thus cause many of them to slow.

Your host saw that and the connections to your site and turned it off and just said it was a DOS attack. If you dont actually look at the logs then yes you may think it is.

You need to start looking for different hosting ASAP and your shared hosting days are over so dont even look in that direction.