Mar 26, 2004 : The webhost industry: week review

📅 March 26, 2004 - After a couple of comparatively quiet weeks, this week saw a batch of fresh evidence for the very real threat of virus damage to the Web hosting industry, as the recording industry continued to battle the effects of the MyDoom worm, and a new, highly destructive threat emerged in the Witty worm.
On Monday, research organization Netcraft reported that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) Web site remained offline nearly five days after suffering a denial of service attack orchestrated using machines infected with a later variant of the MyDoom virus, MyDoom.F.
By Thursday, Netcraft was reporting that the RIAA site had begun demonstrating intermittent availability, and appeared to have switched its Web server from Microsoft IIS 6.0 to Linux.
On Wednesday, it was reported that the Witty worm, a virus that first emerged over the weekend and spread quickly, causing significant and widespread damage to windows computers running the BlackIce Defender Firewall, had impacted the performance of several Web hosting companies, including Webhosting.net. The company said the worm had completely destroyed four of its Windows servers, bringing down more than 1,000 Web sites for most of the weekend. The company said it had retrieved the data from backup servers, but that infected machines had to be rebuilt from scratch. Discussion on Web hosting forums said C I Host had also suffered performance interruptions, but the company did not issue any official word.
The ever-increasing information security threat is prompting continued growth in IT security spending, a trend explored in Rawlson King's Thursday column. Market research firm Freedonia Group estimates that the market for information security products and services in the US will grow almost 19 percent per year through 2008, reaching almost $20 billion by that time. And according to Gartner, security spending in Europe is expected to grow to $6.2 billion by 2007, with the fastest-growing market being the UK.
Along with the major impact of security issues this week, there was news that some significant players in the Web hosting business appeared to be seriously rethinking their business strategies.
On Wednesday, the board of directors of publicly traded European hosting firm Host Europe reported that it had been involved in discussions with Internet communications provider Pipex Communications about a possible acquisition offer. Host Europe said the discussions might lead to an offer to acquire its entire issued and to-be-issued share capital, in a deal that would be worth roughly 31.2 million pounds in cash.
And on Thursday, it was reported that US hosting giant Interland would close Trellix, the Web site building software firm it acquired just over a year ago for $12.2 million. Trellix was part of Interland's Business Solutions suite, launched last May. The company recently unveiled a new sales strategy, announcing that it would downsize the Business Solutions unit, though it did not mention specifically mention Trellix at the time.
Along with several other specific areas of the Internet, the domain name business saw some big news this week, including reports that ICANN was considering proposals for nine new TLDs and news of a new 100-year domain registration offering from Network Solutions.
ICANN announced late last week that it had received 10 applications for nine proposed new top-level domains. Each of the domains would be sponsored by the organization that submitted the application, though two of the applications proposed the .tel domain. The applications were submitted as part of a process initiated by ICANN in December. Final decisions on the new domains are reportedly expected this summer.
And on Tuesday, domain registrar Network Solutions said it would begin offering customers 100-year domain registrations at the discounted rate of $9.99 per year. Though only available to customers of the non-refundable 100-year plan, the $9.99 price tag would be a savings of more than 70 percent over NetSol's regular yearly rate of $34.99. The company says the service is designed to ensure that domains cannot be allowed to expire, either by accident or by oversight, intended for companies or individuals that don't want to worry about the possibility of losing their domain registration.
Just a few months into 2004, the year has already seen some of the worst virus threats in history. And with virus threats returning this week to the forefront of the Web hosting business's attention, the trend of widespread virus damage is showing no signs of letting up. New viruses, and new damage estimates, will no doubt continue to emerge, as 2004 already looks set to be the biggest year yet for the spread of viruses.