5 ms·

LxLabs boss found hanged after vuln wipes websites

37 points by pert 17y ago

pert 17y ago
Related to: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=648788 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=648788 (Hack wipes out data for 100,000 sites) and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=646451 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=646451 (VAServ 'hacked' - all web sites and hosted VMs down)
mahmud 17y ago
Ligesh was found hanged in his Bangalore house on Monday morning, after a late night drinking session .. [He] was also still coming to terms with the suicides by hanging of his sister and mother five years ago. The man probably put all his focus into work to run away from that huge loss of his loved ones, but when work failed, he was back at square one to face the griefing he had ignored. Rest in peace bhai gee.
cperciva 17y ago
When will people learn to make good backups? It seems almost every week there's another story here about how people lost data because they didn't have backups.
- ars 17y ago
  I guess you are being downmodded for being insensitive - but you make a good point.
- SwellJoe 17y ago
  We're in the same business as LXLabs, and believe me, backups are not as common in the hosting industry as we'd all like or expect. Even when it is made easy and automatic, we still get folks asking us for help with recovering or repairing data that could easily be recovered from backups...if they actually kept backups. And, of course, secure off-site backups are almost unheard of (actually making backups secure from attackers that have root access is a pretty hard problem; or, at least, one that requires two machines). Anyway, I've experienced it a few times in my career, and I can say with confidence that there are very few worse feelings than knowing a mistake you've made has caused someone major data loss.
  - cperciva 17y ago
    making backups secure from attackers that have root access is a pretty hard problem Tarsnap handles this easily with restricted keyfiles. :-)
  - e4m 17y ago
    Many of the lost accounts opted for the economy plan that did not include backup... they got what they paid for. No backup unless they took it upon themselves.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
vimalg2 17y ago
A man who lived extreme. I just found his blog http://ligesh.com http://ligesh.com
- vijayr 17y ago
  From his quotes page: Tragedy of Life is that you can’t commit suicide. I just read some of his posts. Definitely a man who lived extreme.
- Jem 17y ago
  It screams "ego". I'm not surprised he had difficulty coming to terms with the damage done because of his software. I feel for the rest of the family. I can't even begin to imagine what it feels like to lose three relatives to suicide in a such a short span of time.
  - SwellJoe 17y ago
    Agreed, though losing two would also be crushing. This article makes it sound like the security exploit and data loss was closely related to his suicide, but I suspect it really boils down to the loss of his mother and sister. People who lose loved ones to suicide are many times more likely to commit suicide themselves. Reading a bit of his blog, it also seems apparent that his father is an alcoholic and drug addict. His ego was almost certainly a defense mechanism, and that kind of thing can be brittle. I'm confident LXLabs was still doing fine...this wasn't going to ruin the business. It's certainly not good for business to have a major security exploit, but he had plenty of customers (according to the article, something like an order of magnitude more than we currently have and we're supporting a couple of salaries), and was the sole developer. Weathering the loss of a few customers for a few months while the storm blows over wouldn't have been too difficult. People forget about security problems eventually. Obviously, security issues never made Bill Gates lose any sleep, or the man would simply never sleep.
    - Jem 17y ago
      Totally - I didn't mean to suggest his initial loss was in any way inferior or anything like that. I hope that's not how it came across. :)
SwellJoe 17y ago
Just saw this on Twitter: http://paste2.org/p/253717 http://paste2.org/p/253717 According to this, it seems like HyperVM wasn't even the attack vector. It was merely the enabler of damage in an already exploited data center. Exploits are known to exist in HyperVM, but the case in question wasn't the result of it, if this post is to be believed.
bdr 17y ago
This list of vulnerabilities taught me a few things: http://www.milw0rm.com/exploits/8880 http://www.milw0rm.com/exploits/8880

37 points by pert 17y ago

pert 17y ago

Related to: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=648788 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=648788 (Hack wipes out data for 100,000 sites) and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=646451 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=646451 (VAServ 'hacked' - all web sites and hosted VMs down)

mahmud 17y ago

Ligesh was found hanged in his Bangalore house on Monday morning, after a late night drinking session .. [He] was also still coming to terms with the suicides by hanging of his sister and mother five years ago. The man probably put all his focus into work to run away from that huge loss of his loved ones, but when work failed, he was back at square one to face the griefing he had ignored. Rest in peace bhai gee.

cperciva 17y ago

When will people learn to make good backups? It seems almost every week there's another story here about how people lost data because they didn't have backups.

ars 17y ago
I guess you are being downmodded for being insensitive - but you make a good point.
SwellJoe 17y ago
We're in the same business as LXLabs, and believe me, backups are not as common in the hosting industry as we'd all like or expect. Even when it is made easy and automatic, we still get folks asking us for help with recovering or repairing data that could easily be recovered from backups...if they actually kept backups. And, of course, secure off-site backups are almost unheard of (actually making backups secure from attackers that have root access is a pretty hard problem; or, at least, one that requires two machines). Anyway, I've experienced it a few times in my career, and I can say with confidence that there are very few worse feelings than knowing a mistake you've made has caused someone major data loss.
- cperciva 17y ago
  making backups secure from attackers that have root access is a pretty hard problem Tarsnap handles this easily with restricted keyfiles. :-)
- e4m 17y ago
  Many of the lost accounts opted for the economy plan that did not include backup... they got what they paid for. No backup unless they took it upon themselves.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]

vimalg2 17y ago

A man who lived extreme. I just found his blog http://ligesh.com http://ligesh.com

vijayr 17y ago
From his quotes page: Tragedy of Life is that you can’t commit suicide. I just read some of his posts. Definitely a man who lived extreme.
Jem 17y ago
It screams "ego". I'm not surprised he had difficulty coming to terms with the damage done because of his software. I feel for the rest of the family. I can't even begin to imagine what it feels like to lose three relatives to suicide in a such a short span of time.
- SwellJoe 17y ago
  Agreed, though losing two would also be crushing. This article makes it sound like the security exploit and data loss was closely related to his suicide, but I suspect it really boils down to the loss of his mother and sister. People who lose loved ones to suicide are many times more likely to commit suicide themselves. Reading a bit of his blog, it also seems apparent that his father is an alcoholic and drug addict. His ego was almost certainly a defense mechanism, and that kind of thing can be brittle. I'm confident LXLabs was still doing fine...this wasn't going to ruin the business. It's certainly not good for business to have a major security exploit, but he had plenty of customers (according to the article, something like an order of magnitude more than we currently have and we're supporting a couple of salaries), and was the sole developer. Weathering the loss of a few customers for a few months while the storm blows over wouldn't have been too difficult. People forget about security problems eventually. Obviously, security issues never made Bill Gates lose any sleep, or the man would simply never sleep.
  - Jem 17y ago
    Totally - I didn't mean to suggest his initial loss was in any way inferior or anything like that. I hope that's not how it came across. :)

SwellJoe 17y ago

Just saw this on Twitter: http://paste2.org/p/253717 http://paste2.org/p/253717 According to this, it seems like HyperVM wasn't even the attack vector. It was merely the enabler of damage in an already exploited data center. Exploits are known to exist in HyperVM, but the case in question wasn't the result of it, if this post is to be believed.

bdr 17y ago

This list of vulnerabilities taught me a few things: http://www.milw0rm.com/exploits/8880 http://www.milw0rm.com/exploits/8880