NTT SmartConnect: unauthorized access to Smile Server

On 24 July, NTT SmartConnect, an NTT West subsidiary, detected an alert of unauthorized access on two servers of its Smile Server rental hosting (jm9 and jm10.etius.jp), found suspicious files planted, and stopped all services on both servers at 13:00. Customers had to rebuild their websites and email on substitute servers, and the outage lasted weeks. Its findings of 31 August found no sign that customer data was leaked or altered. From September 8 it accepted requests for environments restoring data and settings as of July 24, to be provided after application and safety checks. Data from substitute environments would not be merged automatically; customers needed migration and configuration work.