Datacenter Robbed for the Fourth Time in Two Years

mariushm writes "According to the Register, the Chicago-based colocation datacenter C I Host was attacked by armed intruders recently, making it the the fourth time in two years that armed thugs have made off with data. According to a letter C I Host officials sent customers, 'At least two masked intruders entered the suite after cutting into the reinforced walls with a power saw ... During the robbery, C I Host's night manager was repeatedly tazered and struck with a blunt instrument. After violently attacking the manager, the intruders stole equipment belonging to C I Host and its customers.' Aggravating the situation, C I Host representatives took several days to admit the most recent breach, according to several customers who said they lost equipment, all the while reporting the problems as 'router failures'."

Comments

Re:The evil thing here - continuation.

[Z00L00K]

"at least two masked intruders entered the suite after cutting into the reinforced walls with a power saw,"

In what way was that wall reinforced? Dual layer of sheetrock? If it was sufficiently reinforced it would have delayed the intruders long enough for the police to get there (unless the police chose to not respond). If I was insuring that company I would drop the insurance dead by now due to lack of sufficient protective measures. If the measures were approved by the insurance company I would recommend all other clients to change insurance company.

Anyway - maybe it's time to weave in copper mesh into the T-shirt of all datacenter employees to protect against tazers.

And notice from a comment to the article that any so called man trap doesn't exist - and the security seems to have been far too relaxed. Just a fine example of how not to do things. A good datacenter is located where almost nobody knows where it is - preferably underground in a nondescript location in the countryside. A set of optical fibers will take care of all the traffic. And very few persons shall have physical access to the hardware. Think about how the military handles their datacenters.

I'm one of the victims....

[Anonymous Coward]

I've used them for years, and was an avid supporter of CI Host even while they were enduring constant negative publicity.. I was initially a client of their shared hosting, then upgraded to a dedicated hosting package, and never had an issue aside from the typical short downtime every now and then.. nothing crazy.. so a startup I was working with put a colocated server with them earlier this year and in around 6 months we endure an outage for numerous days, numerous BS excuses, then one day "Oh yeah by the way your server was actually stolen, and good luck finding the real thieves!" So now we come to find that this has happened 3-4 times in the past 2 years, the detective (and even a worker there I talked with) told me they believed it was an inside job. Obviously I am cancelling all of my accounts and taking my business elsewhere. I will proudly do my best to spread the word and tell EVERYONE I know to NEVER use CI Host for *ANYTHING*

CI Host Chicago

[Average]

I've actually been in this datacenter. Tried to host some boxes there for a while... and when I finally gave up on their shenanigans, I was not near Chicago, so I just abandoned them there (cheaper than shipping).

First, this datacenter is literally two blocks from what is left of the infamous Cabrini-Green projects. Tough neighborhood, so it's not entirely impossible that it is an outside cracked-up scheme.

There was none of the double-man-trap doors or whatever there. The one staffer was in the back playing a Playstation. The couple of customers in the center exchanged cell numbers, so we could call each other to get let back when we needed to use the toilet.

The Dallas billing people weren't any better. Worst... host... ever.

Cut through RC walls? Sounds fishy to me.

[Overzeetop]

Seriously, cutting through a reinf. concrete wall is not trivial, if it was indeed just that. By code, the minimum thickness of a concrete wall is 6" and most used for loadbearing in anything but the cheapest residential construction are 8". You aren't cutting that with a reciprocating saw (aka Sawzall). Second, reinforced concrete walls are required (in order to be considered "reinforced" by code) to have steel bars equal to 0.0014 x wall area in both directions at a spacing no greater than 18". That typically works out to a 1/2" steel bar at 12" on center or a 5/8" steel bar at 16" o 18" on center both horizontally and vertically.

Now, this is a non-technical publication, so "reinforced" may mean anything - like a 1/2" bar at the top and bottom, and around jambs. Also, this is Chicago, known far and wide for severe corruption in the building inspection process.

Still, anything close to a RC wall is going to require a diamond blade and a gas powered saw for any kind of efficiency at all, and the cut rate is going to be measured in single-digit (or fractional) inches per minute. Most also require a water source for cooling. You'd have to be utterly incompetent not to catch these guys before they got in.

Re:The evil thing here - continuation.

[billcopc]

Stronger walls, and maybe armed security guards. Heck, we have them up here in Canada and we don't have a tenth of the violent crime problems Chicago has.

Here is a copy of the police reports

[inject_hotmail.com]

I found these links to the report from a post on theregister.co.uk

Report 1 Page 1
Report 1 Page 2
Report 2 Page 1
Report 2 Page 2
Report 3 Page 1
Report 3 Page 2

The guy says that $50,000 worth of stuff was stolen...not only servers, but misc crap like routers, and battery chargers for Black Berry units.

I'd say either look for a new web host startup in the Chicago area in the next year, or a lot of stuff going cheap on Ebay.

The saddest part about this is that the crims clubbed and zapped some innocent guy that would have offered zero resistance. For this, I hope they thieves go to jail for a long time.

Advertising for a guard - "bring your own gun"

[tomhudson]

I couldn't make this stuff up. They're advertising for a security guard,

"We are seeking motivated individuals" ... translation: work cheap.

"Prior security experience preferred." ... translation: not really a requirement, but if we can get it at no extra cost ...

"Some College is also preferred." ... if you managed to drop out of college instead of high school, you're more "presentable" to our insurers, who are now royally pissed at us ...

... and if you scroll down to the bottom of the page:

"Armed Hand-gun license/permit and ability to supply own weapon a Huge Plus! : translation: "we're cheap! You're desperate AND stupid! Let's talk!"

Re:The evil thing here

[tomhudson]

They didn't bust through a wall this time - they forced the lock on the front door of the office "suite", according to a customer who went there the next day to check on his equipment.

The "reinforced walls" exist in the same universe as the "router outage".

There were no employees on duty at the time of the break-in. One employee showed up and got himself tazered, AFTER the door had been forced, in response to an alarm.

This was the 4th break-in in 3 years. That alone is suspicious. Taser? Sure, can't kill a co-worker, right?

Security cameras? There's now a question as to whether they (security cameras owned by CI Host) existed in the first place. The only cameras anyone has seen are a few owned by other businesses in the building ...

All very suspicious.

Re:Bringing own gun is a good idea

[tomhudson]

You can't GET a carry permit in Chicago, unless you're a cop or military.

CI Host didn't invest in proper facilities. Contrary to the article summary, the robbery was made by people forcing open the door lock to the office, when nobody was there, and an employee "just happened to show up later in response to the alarm". And the crooks "just happened to have tasers" instead of guns. And the crooks "just happened to steal all the non-existent video surveillance cameras".

And the walls are not "reinforced" - they're plain ordinary office walls. Unless you want to count a new coat of paint as "reinforcement".

Re:The evil thing here - continuation.

[Lord Ender]

if you don't know what a datacenter is, you're probably nowhere near interested in this entire field.

The fact that he is asking at all proves that he is interested in the field.

You must have very poor memory, nuzak, if you can't recall what it was like learning your trade.

When I was in high school, I knew I wanted to work in the computer field, yet I didn't know what a datacenter was. If I had met a pretentious jerk like you, I might not be managing a datacenter, today. Luckily, I met people who answered my questions instead of people like you. I also asked questions on slashdot, and learned quite a lot from this place.

And to answer the original question: A datacenter is a room full of computers with experts monitoring and maintaining them 24/7. It has special air conditioning, wiring, and security. Sometimes people rent servers or space there. Sometimes they contain only the computers of the company that owns the datacenter.