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

inside job

[Anonymous Coward]

smells like an inside job / insurance scam 1st would be an anomaly , 4th time i would be looking very hard at the companies and its staffs finances

Re:inside job

[sir_montag]

It most likely was an inside job. A little while back, I was working for a company that was installing some VoIP phones for CI Host and the list of employee phone numbers kept changing from visit to visit - "Oh that guy? No, he doesn't work here any more."

A friend of mine that used to work there said that "being in jail was a fairly common excuse for missing work there". The employees seemed to hate working there, to put it mildly.

And the cokehead that owned the company loved to fire employees at a moment's notice, left and right. I highly doubt there's any employee loyalty there.

So in short, you've got highly unhappy employees that get fired at an amazing rate, with some seriously negative employee loyalty and they're surprised when stuff gets stolen?

A few possibilities....

[dgatwood]

Well, if they actually care enough to try to prevent these attacks, I can see three solutions, any of which should be highly effective:

Deadly force. If you are being robbed at gunpoint on a regular basis, your employees can legitimately say that they fear for their lives, and thus, purchasing of firearms is legally and morally justifiable. Perhaps a couple of guards posted at the entrance with semiautomatic rifles, plus three or four in appropriately concealed locations within the facility (or more if the facility is large enough). Criminals (armed or not) will think twice before attacking.

Electrical interference. Hook a 230 kV transmission line directly to the rebar in the walls. Anyone who tries to cut their way in will likely spontaneously combust, or at the very least, be knocked several meters. Such an attack won't happen twice.

Oxygen deprivation. You probably already have halon fire extinguishers. Assign everyone emergency oxygen masks and a red button remote. In the event of an attack, press the red button and put on your oxygen mask. Assuming you dump enough halon, it will bond with all the free oxygen in the room, incapacitating or killing the intruders in seconds. Assuming they survive, they should still be unconscious when the police arrive to arrest them.

I was one of the victims...

[jimijon]

Last November I had ALL my servers stolen there. Now over all the years I have had servers I have backed up data, upgraded servers, clean installed servers, etc., then that fateful day in November after being stonewalled for days I finally went over to the data center only to find ALL my servers stolen. All my data. Yea I had some offsite backups, etc, but .... stolen. I guess they thieves really liked my XServes. They were nice and shiny in a sea of beige and black. Anyway, they gave me some free hosting after that, so, I said ok.. big mistake... about a month ago two of my three servers were stolen. Thankfully I had them a bit spread at the datacenter. Well, can I sue? What can I do now? Same bs, promising me servers and nothing. Last year I lost a lot of clients,,, granted all but two were mostly very small time hosting accounts. This time I now lost a big client even though I got them back up and running asap... get a server, install configure, read the files from the backup server, etc. Anyway it was truly the worst feeling I have had in many a year. It is definitely bs. And what do the Chicago PD do? Well your guess is as good as mine.. maybe they are out ticketing the thieves truck as their meter runs out. Any lawyers out there that can help?

Re:The evil thing here

[grommit]

In that forum, it was posted that the hosting provider had posted a job application for somebody willing or able to carry a gun. They were hiring at minimum wage or just above minimum wage if you had experience with guns.

So, they're looking to hire people that carry guns that are willing to accept a job at minimum wage. That should tell you something right there.

Re:The evil thing here - continuation.

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually had a server hosted in that very Chicago facility. (I actually got referred to it by clicking a "$75 a month colocation" advertisement link on slashdot)

The datacenter in question is in a terrible neighborhood, and I can't see anyone bothering a truck there in the dead of night.

There was no man trap, and no security of any sort, just a tech guy who let me in and opened the glass datacenter door for me.

I doubt they have a panic button of any sort either.

You disable the one guy on call and there would be no police coming, period.

Re:The evil thing here

[tylernt]

somebody willing or able to carry a gun.

Illinois is one of the most anti-gun states, and Chicago has even more strict rules on top of that. It's almost as bad as Britain. About the only way you're going to have an armed security guard in Chicago is if he's actually a sworn law enforcement officer or you have *really* tight political connections to those in power.

In a more, uh... "free" state, yes, armed security is a realistic proposition. However such states usually have less violent crime too, so you don't need them as much.