Worse IT support company ever ?

[Depicus]

Ok I'm sure I've found the worst IT company I've ever dealt with, unless you know differently

 

The background, ok I'm not going to name the company but they are based in Slough and what they told us is incomprehensibly. We have been working on a web based line of business app for a client, we originally built the system in Access back in 2001. I didn't do much on it, a colleague did most of the development. The client was complaining that sometimes it took a few minutes for pages to render and generally their network was slow so we benchmarked in the office and knew our app was fine. 

 

I have some network testing kit so we suggested we come over and test their network to try and find out why it was so slow. We arrived and the first machine we looked at had 1,000,000 icons on the desktop so the first thing I do is fire up Windows Updates and notice the machine is up to date yet the last update was June 2013 !!! Ok it's an SBS site so they have a WSUS so I do a check against Microsoft and there is an update to Windows Update so the other 20 machines are going to be the same. Next log onto the server where the IIS was installed and first thing I see is a program group called Dark Mailer. That doesn't look good....

 

Long story short, every machine bar 2 had Rootkits (not picked up by Sophos), Viruses and Malware and no Windows Updates. The three servers had been compromised and all three had Viruses, no Windows Updates since June 2013 and one machine had clearly been used by the intruder as there were 5GB of email lists, mailer programs and scan results from hacking tools. He was even cocky enough to use his own account and managed to use Google Chrome to browse his Skype account (yes I have his username) and his Commerzbank account !!!

 

Now for the incredible part....

 

This was over a week ago and the clients support company still hasn't run Windows Updates on any of the servers or tried to secure them in any way, despite being paid to support the client. The client ask we speak to them and this was their reply.

 

1. We don't do Windows Updates because it messes up the Exchange server 

2. All machines have viruses but they are blocked from doing anything by Sophos

3. Sophos would not allow bulk emailing on the server

4. We block everything going in and out except port 25 so we are safe

 

At this stage we gave up on the call but 

 

1. WTF complete BS

2. No they don't - not on my clients machines they don't

3. Again WTF the hacker had Remote Desktop access and could turn Sophos off, however he was clever and installed VMware and used that to boot Ubuntu to send all the mails.

4. This was the biggest WTF, how do you allow web traffic then !!! They allow web access and remote desktop so that is clearly BS.

 

I've spoken to a few poor companies in my time but this is the worst I have ever seen.

 

 

 

[+ThePhoenix Subscriber²]

Agreed, absolute bollocks the lot of it.  For every good company out there there's just as many bad ones.  I certainly could not operate that way, crap customer service and they obviously don't know what they are really doing.

 

We've taken on a few places in last year or so in a crappy state as well, no windows updates in years, crappy setup, half arsed policies etc.

 

More business for us having a good rep, which is good, but feel sorry for the customers out there who deal with these kind of people and think they are paying experts to do the job right 

[Som]

Once I called Toshiba to return a Windows Tablet for a customer as it wouldn't turn on.  They replaced the mainboard on the tablet but didn't put a consumer version of Windows on it, just an unactivated pre install used by manufacturers.  When I contacted them again about it they said that that problem (caused by them) wasn't under warranty , that they would charge for repair, and that I should have made a system image before I returned it.  Then the mainboard broke again a couple of days later, returned it, and got it back with the same windows problem.  When I complained again the "technician" explained that he had been fixing tablets for 20 years and that it was me causing the problem. Amazing how he was fixing tablets long before they where invented.  Eventually I got sorted but only by complaining to the head office and it took 2 months.

 

Another time with toshiba another tablet was sent back, faulty power jack.  They wouldn't fix it under warranty and charged

[Dot Matrix]

Good God!

 

 

Run! Run away, and don't look back, and then nuke from orbit!

[TPreston]

And then there's the lazy lard ass software developers who are still living in the days of windows xp.

"Make the user a full administrator!"

"give the user full read/write access to c:\programfiles\myapplication !"

"Edit the network share security so that EVERYONE! is granted FULL CONTROL!"

[sc302 Veteran]

They block everything going in and out except port 25 huh? Guess they block 80 and 443 in that scenario too....how are they able to access websites? And what are they using to block outgoing traffic...I hope it is an off the shelf router because they don't have the capability to with stock firmware...oh for phone's to be able to access exchange server 443 has to be open incoming as well as 25. But I am sure owa and active sync doing work outside of the site because they are blocking those required ports.

I can see not wanting to do the mail server due to having it down for an unknown account of time while updates happen . If the exchange server id's the same as the file server, you probably want that to be controlled which means after hours....tell the company that they need to be down for maintenance during business hours for an unknown amount of time or they need to pay for after hours support to be able to perform necessary maintenance, see how fast they tell you to leave and don't come back.

The best thing that can be done for that site is too nuke from orbit and start fresh, a company will know how long that would take. Clean up could take 5+ hours a computer...and the server, if it is sbs nuke it regardless.

In a perfect world, I want updates that run in the background without allowing down the user session and that do not require a reboot. This would insure that they always get done. You can't do it during the day because users complain, you can't do it at night because users turn off their computers even when instructed to leave on. The user issue needs to be taken out. The business need to be up 24x7x365 has to be taken out. If you think it id's a option to be able to update...it isn't unless you are at the computer...Because it is inconvenient or impossible to do any other time..the customer drives their business we can only recommend.

The rest is just utter stupidity on their part.

[Cyberkiller]

incomprehensibly

[+John Teacake MVC]

Name and Shame!! 

[Osiris]

Yes that is ridiculous but picture a somewhat paperless firm that has to maintain its records for 7 years, being told by an IT company 'lets not fix the existing backup solution and instead we'll go to the cloud'...but then never actually implement anything.  They went over 12 months without a back up solution and only noticed when one of the staff members needed  a file retrieved and was met by a series of ummms and we'll look into that's.  The company wouldn't exist today if disaster had of struck in that time...at least with burying your head in the sand and praying Sophos solves all you still had backups.

[Tomo]

And then there's the lazy lard ass software developers who are still living in the days of windows xp.

"Make the user a full administrator!"

"give the user full read/write access to c:\programfiles\myapplication !"

"Edit the network share security so that EVERYONE! is granted FULL CONTROL!"

And

 

Turn off UAC

There's a fault on the network

It's the server that's slow

It's not compatible with 64 bit, can you set it to 32 bit?

 

and the best one I've heard

 

It's a Windows fault, erm surely you make your application work with Windows rather than expect Microsoft to work around you?

[kozukumi]

Heh yeah I have experienced many similar support companies. I did a 4 week contract at a company in West London back in June 2013. They had vanilla Windows 7 installs. Not a single patch. No SP1. Nothing. They were running Kaspersky AV but it had never updated. They had 2 servers both running Windows 2003 which again had never been updated and didn't have AV on it. Needless to say the clients and servers were all infected. They had VNC installed on every machine with the password being, wait for it... the company name with a 1 on the end. WOW!

 

But wait there's more! They didn't have any kind of regular backup system. What do I mean by regular? Well their backup system comprised of plugging in a USB external HDD and manually backing up the folders they needed backups of. They did this "about 3 or 4 times a year" according to the owner. Even better is that they just overwrote everything each time so the "backups" were a mixture of files from all ages. And that doesn't even begin to cover things like their publicly facing FTP site (running on vanilla Server 2003) which gave FULL read/write access to the WHOLE system with the username/password combo of administrator/companyname1. Amazing. There were other things like torrent clients (and downloaded movies, music, etc.). Toolbars galore. You name it they had it.

 

It was truly a nightmare but it made me a lot of money

[snuffy]

And then there's the lazy lard ass software developers who are still living in the days of windows xp.

"Make the user a full administrator!"

"give the user full read/write access to c:\programfiles\myapplication !"

"Edit the network share security so that EVERYONE! is granted FULL CONTROL!"

 

 

there are still companies today using these principles, Quotewerks for one.

[Depicus]

Looks like the client doesn't want the police involved so another hacker will get away scot free.... so frustrating.

[+John Teacake MVC]

Removed References I should not really discuss.

[remixedcat]

if you won't name it I have a hard time beliving it.

[Praetor]

Name for future reference.

[TPreston]

And then there's the lazy lard ass software developers who are still living in the days of windows xp.

"Make the user a full administrator!"

"give the user full read/write access to c:\programfiles\myapplication !"

"Edit the network share security so that EVERYONE! is granted FULL CONTROL!"

A followup SAGE today I had one of their "engineers" tell me that we should copy the entire apexdata folder to another directory and share it with EVERYONE granted FULL CONTROL... We did this and it stalled after running. She was very helpful though and said  the reason why sage was running at 50% cpu doing nothing is because of a lack of permissions

 

specifically the NTFS permissions...

On the sage shortcut...

On the desktop... 

Which wasn't Full Control To Everyone

 

These monkeys will say or do anything to avoid being dragged kicking and screaming into 20xx.

[Praetor]

I have several stories like that, some funny others sad. My latest one: the first day i saw my companies datacenter i stared at it for a couple of minutes...then i cryed.

It was THAT ######ed up.

[Depicus]

Two of the files I got show how easy it is for hackers with password management like this.

 

 

[binaryzero]

LOL!

[sinetheo]

Isn't exchange 2003 even deprecriated!! I know Server 2003 is on it's way out now as I am getting emails from headhunters looking for help with server migrations to 2012

[binaryzero]

^ yep - they're running legacy software. 

[T3X4S]

Looks like the client doesn't want the police involved so another hacker will get away scot free.... so frustrating.

LOL What ?!?

 feds/police are way to busy to care about something like this - if anyone were to complain to authotirities about the above scenario you would get a blank stare and a "we'll look into it" and you will never hear another word.

Why would authorities give 2 craps about what happened above ?  No money was stolen - just illegal entry of a computer - so what ?!

[binaryzero]

The interwebz cops are gonna kick ass and chew bubble gum... and they're all outta gum.

[Depicus]

LOL What ?!?

 feds/police are way to busy to care about something like this....

 

Yes you are correct but it basically means we have given up on the internet and are allowing it to become safe haven for criminals. A kid can sit at home and hone his skills without fear of getting caught and because s/he's not been caught will move on to bigger and bigger things. It's not until you or somebody you know becomes an online victim and then its "why wasn't more done to stop these kids"

 

And really this one should be easy for PC Plod....