I posted an article the other day about a web hosting company, not a host offering dedicated hosting but a virtual private server (VPS) hosting company, that lost 100,000 websites overnight. The attack was a result of a security hole in the virtualization application that the host company was using, an application called HyperVM from LXLabs.

The vulnerability is a bit of a surprise - not that it existed, but that it wasn’t patched by a company that should have the resources to do so, and more importantly, can’t really afford that kind of vulnerability. What also struck me about the article was the fact that 50% of these customers were unmanaged, which means they had no data backup, and may never recover any of their data. Many of these users would have had their data backed up, but those that didn’t will likely look at it more closely next time around (probably while they’re looking for a new host!).

Does this kind of report make you more likely to consider a managed hosting solution for your company?

Well, I’m not sure how much I’ll actually use the account, but I thought it was important to get on Twitter and make sure no one else got my alias. Having started looking at Twitter for Superb, it only made sense to look at it for myself, too. Although I won’t be talking about dedicated servers and managed hosting as much on my account, I hope I can tweet something worth following!

@JayAndSilentRob

Doing contract work for a hosting company, I realize the difficulties in targeting quality traffic. It’s a competitive market, meaning companies are not only able to outspend each other, they are constantly looking to get an edge or advantage. With something like dedicated servers and managed hosting, this is especially true. An article on targeting social networks for sales was recently released on Website Magazine, and it provides some interesting points, demographics, and general info about leveraging social platforms for sales.

Everywhere I seem to look the last few days, security seems to be a major topic; I briefly read over the headlines from my Computerworld newsletter and Microsoft is patching a ’super nasty’ bug. I open up the daily 24hours newspaper, and a Virus has taken control of the Vancouver school board computers, resulting in a near lockdown of the entire system as technicians scramble to isolate and remove the infection. Even Paris Hilton’s website has been hacked and used to serve a malicious Trojan program.

It’s almost impossible to completely secure your site and/or applications, and it will almost always be a game of catch-up for those trying to prevent these attacks, but its important for users and programmers/developers to take the steps they can take to help prevent or limit their vulnerabilities. In line with that, the Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE), a community-developed dictionary of software weakness types, has released the top 25 most dangerous programming errors for 2009. Touted as a tool for educating and helping to eliminate common mistakes, the list can be used by developers, project managers, and CIOs as a measuring stick to gauge efforts in securing software and applications.

I try my best to support the Dark Side, not necessarily because they deserve it, but more because I think they constantly take more abuse than they deserve. An article on IT World Canada outlines Microsoft’s 3 great ‘08 mistakes and they’re pretty bang on:

1. Poor marketing of Windows Vista
2. The Seinfeld/Gates ads
3. Failed bid for Yahoo!

The article suggests that 2009 will be a pivotal year for Microsoft; some of their flagship offerings took some hits this year, with Windows and Internet Explorer losing market share to their competition. With Windows 7 and IE8 looking to release and the company desperately looking to thwart efforts of Google cutting in on Microsoft Office, Microsoft needs to quickly forget about the errors of ‘08 with a strong ‘09.