Cloud Nine sells up after DoS attack

Cloud Nine, the UK Internet service provider (ISP) that closed down this week after being hit by a denial of service (DoS) attack, announced early on Thursday morning that it had sold its assets and customer base to fellow ISP ZetNet.

This deal may not be the end of the matter, though, as V21 -- another ISP that Cloud Nine is understood to have been in negotiations with -- is thought to be considering legal action against Cloud Nine.

Under the agreement, ZetNet will acquire Cloud Nine's customer base -- and the company has set up an information page and an IRC channel for those affected by this change. Many of Cloud Nine's customers have posted angry comments in online forums about the disruption to their services, and the lack of communication from Cloud Nine.

Click here to read a message issued by Cloud Nine regarding the deal with ZetNet.

Cloud Nine closed down on Tuesday morning, blaming a vicious DoS attack that it claimed had disabled its servers and caused serious damage to its business. The ISP told its customers that because its insurance would not cover the cost of bringing its servers back online, it was forced to sell up.

At one stage V21 was thought to have acquired Cloud Nine's assets. According to one unconfirmed report, V21 is now considering legal action amid suggestions that a "previously agreed deal" with Cloud Nine had been withdrawn. Attempts to contact V21 for comment were unsuccessful.

Cloud Nine has also strongly denied rumours that it closed down because of financial problems, rather than as a result of an attack. "We must deny any rumours that any of this is down to financial reasons. Cloud Nine was a solvent company, cash flow positive with cash in the bank (and no borrowings except for operating leases) but as the attacks continued this was obviously going to change and our decision had to be taken with that in mind," said the company in a statement.

Cloud Nine's customers, though, have been forced to watch a series of rumours fly around the Internet about which ISP was about to snap them up. Many claim to have received very little official communication about what was actually going on -- to which Cloud Nine's defence is that the DoS attack took out its email and Web servers.

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