One Service Rep – Above and Beyond
Actually, it’s more like 5 service rep’s over the last two months, but today’s rep at IX Web Hosting really impressed me. Let me share a little about Carson with you.
A little background… a hacker POS found a way into my hosting account. An unsecured back door or careless password from someone on the server and the little scum sucker wiggled his or her way in. IX notified me immediately that my account password might have been compromised. They changed ALL passwords immediately and required me to do the same.
However, in the short time between hack and discovery, they were already at work. Automated bot’s ran scripts that propagated itself into thousands of files. I have spent a lot of time over the last two months restoring files, reinstalling Wordpress, updating Plugins.
Today, I went to my site (as I do almost every day) and Avast screamed a warning at me. My site was infected with malware! An iFrame was injected into my site doing God knows what. (As far as I can tell, nothing, but you know how those sneaky little devils can be).
Refresh the page, and it disappears. Owwww. This is gonna make it hard to find and fix if it won’t stay still more than a minute.
I reinstalled all files again and then went to the site again. Still there. Frustrated and pretty upset at the absolutely worthless crap some people have the need to share with others, I called IX. They offer live chat (which I mostly use), and a 24/7 ticket system (which I have to use sometimes when the live chat guys can’t help) and phone help.
Today, frustrated and ready to pull my hair out, I needed a real live human being to vent to. Someone to ask questions of. Someone who would let me know I am not alone out here. Today, that was Carson.
Carson of the southern drawl. Carson of the enormous patience. Carson, my hero.
More than 40 minutes on phone as we explored every security measure possible, Carson never once was anything but a gentleman. This despite the fact that I was a woman on a vent. Not to him certainly, but rant just the same.
By the time I got off the phone with Carson, I felt pretty good about what we were able to accomplish, and what the next steps were. It’s a rare service tech that can calm me down once I am pissed off, but Carson managed to do it without even seeming to try.
Thanks Carson. I really appreciate you.
And to those of you worried about your sites, let me share something I learned today. Make sure your permissions are no higher than 755 for any file or folder on your site. Above that, and anyone can use the *open door* to inject code. I found more than a 100 open doors!
Don’t depend on a new upload to just set the permissions for you (like I did). Make sure they are set correctly. That little extra step would have saved me a lot of grief.
So, need a host that has excellent tech support with compassionate people on the other end of that lifeline? You really have to give IX Web Hosting a try.
About The Author
Cenay Nailor is an Online Marketing and Blogging coach with mad technical skills she loves sharing with Videos. Visit her video tutorial blog and get some technical help. You should also snag the weekly injection of Tech-Based Marketing Newsletter, and have it sent right to your inbox. (Upper right corner)
Related Geeky Articles
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you grab the RSS feed!
This entry was posted by Cenay Nailor, and is filled under Product Review. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.
PDF
All blog content is released via creative commons license except where specifically stated otherwise.
Posting content contained in this blog fully permitted and encouraged if content is
published unchanged, the byline is included in the reproduction, and the post title links to corresponding
blog post webpage.No trackbacks yet.
My Profound Apologies
about 7 months ago - No comments
If you are a part of my Tech Based Marketing Newsletter Subscribers, you have my heartfelt and profound apologies. As many of you know, my sites were hacked, my control panel invaded and 2 months of my time lost chasing the #@%@# hacker(s).
I was able to resolve my problem thanks to the wonderful folks at IX Web Hosting and their tireless efforts to help me get my sites clean and a complete backup on my local computer.
about 8 months ago
Gosh, a follow up call with Frances and I was impressed again. I believe these two have me virus/malware free.
What a wonderful thing when a service rep can impress you with attitude, caring and compassion. It’s so rare today.
about 8 months ago
No wonder I haven’t seen you about.
I am lucky because Money Secrets was hacked a while back, but thankfully my web host sorted everything out.
Nice to know that customer service is alive and kicking when you need it though. : )
about 8 months ago
Susan,
Yes, 100+ sites has kept me pretty busy. Seems all I was doing for more than 2 months was uploading files as the sites became infected again.
The hosting company ran the “cleaning” script multiple times, each time adjusting it with the new information we found but I think the damn POS was inside the account with me. Some backdoor, some little hole they wormed their way in.
Had to enable more security, FTP allows, deny’s, Firewalls and Antivirus’ — more than ANY blog should have to do. It’s a sad day when I can’t blog about what makes me happy without some asshole finding it, drilling a way in and proceeding to make my life a living hell. What did I ever do to him or her?
All this for bragging rights? Get a freaking life.
Had to make some serious choices about all the sites recently. It’s just too many to keep up with in the event of a problem, so 40+ sites were lost. That’s a shame. Those were fun sites I enjoyed.
God, I hate hackers.
Cenay Nailor´s last blog ..Change DNS Video Tutorial