Birch Hosting Blog

We’re posting this inportant update to  let you know in advance of a new development that we will be rolling out to the Hosting control panel from the 15th February.

Over the last year there has been a substantial increase in the number of sites on the internet that have been hacked due to viruses that steal FTP credentials from user’s home computers. The hackers then use these credentials to insert hidden code within your website.

Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gumblar for more information on this type of attack.

To reduce the significant threat from these viruses BirchHosting has been working with a focus group of customers to come up with a solution that protects websites. The solution is to lock FTP when it’s not in use, making it extremely difficult for the hackers to infect your site via this route.

To unlock FTP, customers will simply log into their Bpanel control panel and click one button to unlock FTP for a period of time. FTP will then automatically lock again after the time period has expired.

You will also be able to nominate an IP address that has permanent FTP access, customers FTPing from that IP address will not have to unlock FTP. Nor will you have to unlock FTP if you use the File Manager within the Hosting control panel.

These security measures will ensure that the majority of sites have FTP locked, greatly reducing the risk of having your websites infected.

If you’re a reseller then you may wish to update your welcome emails to reflect the changes, and let your customers know as well. Please remember that this change will go live on the 15th February.