Death of software exec adds pathos to attack on Web hosting firm

The apparent suicide earlier this week by the owner of a company that develops virtualization software used by low cost Web hosting companies has added pathos to a massive hacking incident at one of the firm's U.K.-based customers.

KT Ligesh, the 32-year old owner of Bangalore based LX Labs was found dead in his home on Monday morning according to a report in the Times of India. The paper quoting local police said the suicide might have been prompted by Lx Lab's recent loss of a contract to a rival firm and other personal issues stemming from the suicide of his mother and sister a few years ago.

Ligesh's death came just a day after VAserv, a U.K. Web hosting company disclosed that unknown hackers had breached its virtual server infrastructure and completely deleted 100,000 Web sites being hosted by the company. Nearly half of those might have irretrievably lost data because they did not have back-ups of their data according to a story in The Register.

According to VAserv the hackers breached the company's servers by taking advantage of a zero-day flaw in HyperVM, a virtualization platform sold by LX Lab. But a note published ostensibly by the hacker claimed that the attacks had happened because VAserv had insecure password management practices and not because of HyperVM flaws.

Some of VAserv's customers wondered if Ligesh's death might have also been prompted by news of the massive hack. In a discussion forum ‘vincent123' expressed surprise. "The guy actually killed himself? I read that before, but I thought it was just a way to say he's completely out of business. Such a waste. I wonder how the hacker feels about it all," the poster said.

The post on the discussion forum by Rus Foster, director of VAserv had a touch of anguish. "I've personally reached the end of my physical and emotional tether" Foster wrote in reference to his company's efforts to restore tens of thousands of wrecked sites. "We have worked pretty much continuously for the last few days firefighting. Taking I'm also debating if I'm responsible for someone's death, I'm not in a good place currently."

While the timing might have been striking, Ligesh's death most likely had nothing to do with the attack at VAserv. Even so, it has added more tragedy to what's an already tragic situation for VAserv and its customers.

Most often these days, when hackers steal data at least they have a distinct financial motivation for doing so. However misguided that motivation might be, they still at least have a reason for wanting to break into someone else's systems. In this case, the attackers appear to have destroyed those 100,000 Web for the sheer heck of it and just because they could. It will be interesting to see what kind of sentence they get, if ever they get caught.