[LINK] AT: '“Catastrophic” hack on email provider'

[Roger Clarke]

THEY JUST FORMATTED EVERYTHING —
“Catastrophic” hack on email provider destroys almost two decades of data
VFEmail says data for virtually all US users is gone for good.
DAN GOODIN
Ars Technica
2/13/2019, 5:25 AM
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/02/catastrophic-hack-on-email-provider-destroys-almost-two-decades-of-data/

Plausible reasons:

(1)  An organised-crime operation suspected that the ISP was about to be 
hit with a sub poena for email-traffic that could have broken the 
operation and led to prosecutions of the operation's leaders?  (Could 
apply to an awful lot of 'legit' corporations really).

(2)  An intending extortionist doing a test of their skills, preferably 
one that he could use as a reference-project?

(3)  Someone doing a demo in order to sell a paid gig as a destroyer of 
sites?

Now let's see:
Am I *more* or *less* exposed by managing my own email-archives (25 
years and counting)?

At least I can afford an air-gap to the archival copies, which might be 
too expensive for an ISP?

-- 
Roger Clarke                            mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au
T: +61 2 6288 6916   http://www.xamax.com.au  http://www.rogerclarke.com

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA 

Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law            University of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University