Some of us rely on the Hostony to service our customers, and we stand in front of our customers for quality and reliability.
What happened yesterday was a serious securityh breach, and I looked like a clown to my customers.
What makes matter worse:
1) Hostony's first answer to my rerquest for support was that I was supposed to re-load all sites. They restored my sites from back-up only after I demended them to do so. Even then I had to go thu every single directory and subdirectory to delete the index.* and defaul.* that the hackers had put there. I had to hire a contractor in a hurry to do that for me ant it cost me serious $$$$$
2) Many of my customers have threatened to bring their hosting services somewhere else (somehow I do not blame them), and I am sure that the ones that have not saying anything I am sure that they are thinking about it.
3) I was able to get committment from some of my customers by offering free upgraded service (instead of free services), which in turn is going to cost me more money and it is going to erode my already slim profits. Some of my customers are demanding free services, some demand 6 free months, some up to 12 months of free service, and some other have asked me to reimburse them for 6 month of service as a sign of good faith, as a condition of continuing doing business with me.
4) I have emailed Hostony highlighting the above, asking them to do for me what I am forced to do to my customers, and being in their same position I understand the reluctance to give free service (i.e.: 6 months at no charge), but I would seriously consider remaining if I were to be offered a free "upgrade". Again No answer as of today.
5) I have asked Hostony if my passwords were compromised, since I have many domains, many web sites, and many subwebs, and as of today I have yet to receive an answer. I would not want to have my customers change their password if I can help it, which would be admitting a more serious breach of security, but if I have to do it it must be done pronto! Days of not knowing if someone's username/password has been compromise is not conceivable
Hostony is cheap hosting, but we pay with no phone support, no 24/7 support, downtime, continuos email problems etc...
While at first thought we may want free service (i.e.: the next 6 months for free) it would not be fair to Hostony since some would use this free service, then leave them for another provider, the FAIR thing to do for Hostony is to upgrade everyone affected to the next level of service for the same billing rate, AND - of course - close the security gap that made yesterday's event possible.
Please email Hostony support and sale demanding answers and free upgrade