Light at the end of the tunnel for 123-reg customers

Website hoster struggled to recover websites it accidentally deleted over the weekend

Web hoster 123-reg is restoring service for "the majority of customers affected" after the company accidentally deleted over some websites over the weekend, prompting a Twitter backlash.

On Saturday, customers started experiencing problems accessing their websites, and were advised by 123-reg's Twitter account that "our teams are working to resolve and a further update will be provided."

123-reg was not available for comment when contacted by CRN, but it did tell the BBC yesterday that the issue occurred when the system was undertaking a "clean-up" operation and a coding error in its software deleted an undisclosed number of customer websites.

It also admitted to the BBC that it does not have a backup copy of all its customers' data, and said that 67 servers out of 115,000 were affected across Europe.

The latest upadte on the service status section of 123-reg's website currently states:

"Service is being restored for the majority of customers affected. We reiterate that our service teams are inundated right now, however are working hard and through the night to respond to open emails."

Customers who kept backups of their websites have been advised to rebuild the site themselves following steps on the 123-reg Twitter account.

Throughout the saga, disgruntled customers took to Twitter to try to get updates from the vendor, with one business user tweeting: "I've had the email stating that it is unlikely to be recovered and suggest rebuild. THE REBUILD DOES NOT WORK!!!"

Another Twitter user from Assist Computing said: "You keep telling people to email - I emailed hours ago and haven't even had an auto response."

Security blogger Graham Cluley said the debacle shows that end-users should back up their data.

"All companies need to ask themselves if they are at risk of putting too much trust in their service providers and how they would recover if a catastrophe occurred that could effectively turn their online presence into a 'Website not found" error message', he said.

He added: "Remember this - we are all on the lookout for threats from external attackers and malicious hackers, but sometimes data destruction doesn't have to be the result of internet criminals or a ransomware attack, but instead with the very people you are paying to provide a professional service."