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Namecheap live chat social engineering leads to loss of 2 VPS

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Re: Namecheap live chat social engineering leads to loss of 2 VPS

#101
As someone in the domain registrar industry, are there any features beyond 2FA that you would like to see implemented by registrars?

More bluntly, what is it that you think your current registrar is lacking?

I read a few comments on Gandi and support of GPG keys. I'm guessing this is what you're referring to: https://wiki.gandi.net/en/gandi/documents

Re: Namecheap live chat social engineering leads to loss of 2 VPS

#102

Disclaimer: I'm CIO @ Namecheap 1. The credentials were resent to an already compromised email account 2. This is an isolated case 3. Established procedure was not followed 4. With thissaid, we've used this as a learning example and additional training has been provided to the individual involved 5. Anyone with any self-managed server with ANY provider should always keep their own multiple backups

I love namecheap but 5 sounds like victim blaming. Come on. EDIT: My use of the term is a bit strong. I feel frustrated that company execs cannot explicitly admit a mistake or apologize. I should have worded it differently. EDIT2: just for Tamar. By explicit I mean literally using the words "sorry", "apologize", or "mistake". What we have is the standard corporate nonapology. EDIT3: congrats to Tamar for being promot…

Everyone should practice a good backup routine and take responsibility for backups.

Re: Namecheap live chat social engineering leads to loss of 2 VPS

#103
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> email them a scan of your passport What? Why do they do this?

Apparently, OP wanted to transfer the domain from Gandi.

FWIW I painlessly transferred five domains away from Gandi (ironically, to Namecheap), and I was never prompted for anything like a scan of my passport.

Re: Namecheap live chat social engineering leads to loss of 2 VPS

#104
post #25

Not trying to be snarky, but the biggest lesson here seems to be "don't operate without off-host backups". Cheap VPS providers don't typically offer that sort of thing as a standard feature. Even when they do, the backups would be on the same infrastructure, and easily wiped from the same (compromised) console. You could have just as easily lost all the data in an accidental way, with no malice or 3rd party involved.…

Yeah I'm pretty sure the data loss is not a namecheap specific problem. Speaking from experience I lost an entire website (zero backups including app code - it was a horrible technical debt perfect storm situation no VCS etc) in the huge TigerMate inmotionhosting hack back in 2011 so this is nothing new. It was a PITA but the site was nothing special so I wrote it off as a valuable lesson.

If you give a shit about it, back it up.

Re: Namecheap live chat social engineering leads to loss of 2 VPS

#105
post #25

Not trying to be snarky, but the biggest lesson here seems to be "don't operate without off-host backups". Cheap VPS providers don't typically offer that sort of thing as a standard feature. Even when they do, the backups would be on the same infrastructure, and easily wiped from the same (compromised) console. You could have just as easily lost all the data in an accidental way, with no malice or 3rd party involved.…

We offer full backups with all managed servers/services Self-managed a customer is responsible for their own backups. Just like with DO and that full server loss a couple of months back.

> We offer full backups with all managed servers/services

Are those backups purgeable from the account control panel?

Honestly I'm not a huge fan of same-provider backup solutions. It seems like asking a fox to guard your sheep.

Re: Namecheap live chat social engineering leads to loss of 2 VPS

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't really make sense. We're a great domain and hosting provider.

This isn't your part of the business but there is room for improvement when it comes to kb articles in domain https://www.namecheap.com/support/knowledgebase/article.aspx... The domain registration process isn't automated from my experience but it works well. However, I think the meta is (I think many people will agree) to not mix domain and hosting with the same provider. For example, if you get your domain from nam…

You're right. And this sounds like constructive feedback which we love and are always open to.

Our KB platform is getting some attention as articles are improved and then the UX will be overhauled. We have work to do here and we're doing it.

Re: Namecheap live chat social engineering leads to loss of 2 VPS

#107
post #37
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're cool until they start holding your domains hostage and demanding that you email them a scan of your passport.

> email them a scan of your passport What? Why do they do this?

Some country tlds require copies of legal documents.

Re: Namecheap live chat social engineering leads to loss of 2 VPS

#108
So I just was about the enable 2FA on namecheap but at least from the description it only supports SMS

I'm traveling constantly. I always have a different country's SIM in my phone meaning I can't receive SMSs to a static number.

Is SMS only 2FA acceptable?

Re: Namecheap live chat social engineering leads to loss of 2 VPS

#109
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have had this at Amazon AWS. We had 2FA, one phone call was enough to disable 2FA. The only thing they asked were the last four digits of our credit card.

That is a little unnerving if true.

A reporter at Wired had his digital life destroyed (including personal mac wiped) by social engineering, using little more than info from one account (last 4 digits of credit card from Appstore account) to socially engineer Amazon customer support - http://www.wired.com/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-honan-hacking/

Edit. Had some details wrong. It was a reporter at Gizmodo, and basically a collection of data was gathered from various online services (mailing address, last 4 digits of CC) to ultimately social engineer his Apple account and remote wipe his computer. A number of factors were involved, but ultimately he was done in by not having 2FA on google, and not backing up his machine.

Re: Namecheap live chat social engineering leads to loss of 2 VPS

#110
post #42
post #25

Not trying to be snarky, but the biggest lesson here seems to be "don't operate without off-host backups". Cheap VPS providers don't typically offer that sort of thing as a standard feature. Even when they do, the backups would be on the same infrastructure, and easily wiped from the same (compromised) console. You could have just as easily lost all the data in an accidental way, with no malice or 3rd party involved.…

Second biggest lesson here: do not use weak passwords for emails.

Was interesting that the victim said they used 2FA for everything they considered important, but not email. I guess their email provider doesn't provide it?
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