A bad hack gone good

A friend of mine in the web hosting industry got hacked today. Several of his clients' pages and the web host's page itself got defaced and several clients also had their files deleted and databases cleared.

Generally, this doesn't bode well for PR of a web hosting company... unless it's run by my friend. I'll call him Captain Spin.

So [redacted]'s new backup system saved our biggest client today...
(This is from the support forum on the web host's site. Captain Spin hasn't put together an ad just yet.)

5/17/2008, [redacted]'s most visited hosting Client Instant Messages me:
(4:35:30 PM) Cust: i got hacked. they got me through my outdated CMS
(4:35:46 PM) Me: What?!
(4:35:55 PM) Me: Please call me ASAP: [redacted]
(4:35:55 PM) Cust: hey I did a restore. everything's back to normal.

Facts:

• [redacted]'s new hourly backup system came online less than 72 hours ago. Prior to that, we had no form of backups and were like most other hosting companies: "We are not responsible for your data." He was able to log in to his cpanel, click on "Backup Retrieval," select a backup and go about his merry way.
• This client's website receives 86,400 visits on an average day and is his means of putting food in his stomach.
• The hack was executed via an outdated Content Management System (phpnuke,) which we are updating for him right now.

Great quotes from our phone call:
"I'm so glad I switched over to you guys - You saved my @$ big time here."
"Thank God you set up this backup system, seriously."

The Lesson
Can't figure it out still? Keep up-to-date backups!

Needless to say, [redacted] will push out a press release along with our backup software partner to [redacted] and all the other norms. Happy hosting, everyone. :-)