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Ransomware Attack Downs Hosting Service SmarterASP.NET

SmarterASP.NET, a popular web hosting provider with more than 440,480 customers, has been hit with a ransomware attack that took down its customers’ websites that were hosted by the company. The company on Monday said it is in the process of recovering impacted data.

SmarterASP.NET offers shared web hosting services – which allow many websites to reside on one web server connected to the internet – for customers. Many SmarterASP.NET customers specifically are looking to host ASP.NET sites. ASP.NET is an open source web framework, created by Microsoft, for building web apps and services with .NET.

According to reports, the ransomware attack hit and encrypted customers’ web hosting accounts – which give customers access to servers where they can store files and data required to run their websites – thus crippling customer websites. SmarterASP.NET’s website was also initially downed by the attack, but has since been recovered.

“Your hosting account was under attack and hackers have encrypted all your data,” according to a Monday notice on SmartASP’s website. “We are now working with security experts to try to decrypt your data and also to make sure this would never happen again.  Please stay tune for more info.”

While it’s unclear when the ransomware attack first hit, a rash of Tweets, starting Nov. 9, show customers angered that they were not notified of the attack via email after their services stopped.

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