Hacker deleted all data from VFEmail Servers, including backups

A destructive cyberattack hit the email provider VFEmail, a hacker wiped its servers in the United States, including the backup systems.

An unknown attacker has launched a destructive cyber attack against the email provider VFEmail, he erased information on its server including backups, 18 years’ worth of customer emails were lost.

“We have suffered catastrophic destruction at the hands of a hacker. This person has destroyed all data in the US, both primary and backup systems. We are working to recover what data we can,” reads the statement published by the company on its website.

On Monday, the email provider confirmed that their systems in multiple datacenters were down after a hacker started formatting them.
The company caught the hacker while he was formatting a backup server hosted in the Netherlands. Unfortunately, by that time, the hacker had already managed to erase all disks on every other VFEmail server.

The hacker destroyed all virtual machines even if the company pointed out that they did not share the same authentication.

“This was more than a multi-password via ssh exploit, and there was no ransom. Just attack and destroy,” VFEmail said.

The hacker appears to have been attacking out of Bulgaria.

Of course the attacker could have been using a VPN to hide its real origin.,

VFEmail staff recommends that users do not connect their own email clients because the entire content of their accounts was erased by the hacker.

Backups of the servers located in the Netherlands were not affected and were used to restore the service.

The incident could suggest a wrong cybersecurity posture of the company that that was not able to prevent the intrusion and protect the backups.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – cybersecurity, hacking)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.