dangerous website hosting: Sanctions against GoDaddy due to security issues

If you host your website with GoDaddy, or have considered doing so, you may want to reconsider. It is one of the worst website hosting services, and one of the reasons for this is its disregard for information security. The FTC is taking action against GoDaddy over allegations of poor data security. The proposed order would prohibit GoDaddy from misleading customers about the security it offers and require it to establish a robust data security program. The Federal Trade Commission will require GoDaddy to implement a better information security program as part of a settlement over allegations that the company failed to secure its hosting services against attacks that could harm its customers and visitors to the websites themselves. The FTC alleges in its complaint that since 2018, GoDaddy has failed to implement reasonable and appropriate security measures to protect its website hosting environment and monitor security threats, and that it misled its customers about the level of protection it provides. GoDaddy Inc., based in Arizona, and its subsidiary GoDaddy.com, LLC, are among the world's largest website hosting companies, with approximately 5 million website hosting customers. But as you know, popularity is not an indicator of quality. Many people choose GoDaddy's service because it is inexpensive, and because they buy domain names there, they naturally continue to purchase a hosting package. GoDaddy does not excel at information security, but they are very good at sales. According to the FTC complaint, GoDaddy's security failures include: ignoring software updates, failing to assess risks in shared hosting services, failing to log and monitor security-related events in the hosting environment, and failing to separate shared hosting services from less secure environments. The FTC alleges that GoDaddy's security failures led to several serious security breaches between 2019 and 2022, in which malicious actors gained unauthorized access to customer websites and data. These breaches exposed website visitors to risks, including redirecting them to malicious websites. In addition, the FTC alleges that GoDaddy misled its customers with claims on its websites, in emails, and in social media ads, stating that it implemented reasonable security and that it complied with the requirements of the EU-U.S. and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield frameworks, which require reasonable and appropriate measures to protect information. , which require reasonable and appropriate measures to protect personal information. Now, the FTC is seeking to prohibit GoDaddy from continuing to make false claims about website hosting and data security, to establish an adequate security program, and to hire an independent external assessor to verify that its data security measures meet the standards.

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