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As apparently only the second person who's actually BEEN to that data center to comment (and I also live about five blocks from it), and maybe the only one who's been there in the past month (as a customer, not as the criminals :-) ), here are my comments:
1) The area is quiet, but not deserted. The building has a restaurant in the first floor that's open until at least 11. There are also two late-night restaurants (4am I think) that are popular with cabbies within a block, and within two blocks south, east and north are densely populated residential blocks.
2) I'm not sure what is meant by a "reinforced wall," but it's definitely not reinforced concrete. It may have steel mesh, but the wall between the public hall and the cages is not concrete. If it was just steel mesh, like is used as cage dividers, it would take a circular saw with a "cuts anything" blade no more than 2 minutes to create a hole big enough for a man to get through. I'll admit that, as creepy as this coincidence is, I actually wondered if people could come through the wall the last time I was there.
3) Have any of you been to ANY datacenter? They're LOUD, like the ultimate white noise generator, and this one is no exception. The main office is near the entrance and along the east exterior wall, but the wall between the datacenter and the public hallway is at least 50 feet long, with multiple (insecure) walls, rows of computers and power equipment between the office and the wall they likely came in through (I don't know exactly which wall they came in through for sure, but some seem more obvious than others).
4) I don't know which night manager was on duty, but the guy I've dealt with the last three times I was there always checked my ID while in the foyer between two locked doors (it wasn't a man-trap, but it was two separate locked doors). He also had a prosthetic leg, which could very well have caused him to be subjected to more antagonism by the intruders if he was the one on duty.
5) All that said, the last time I was there, I was removing my equipment (for reasons unrelated to the hosting company), so I'm feeling pretty damn lucky right now.
6) I agree the worst thing is that the company denied and failed to notify for days afterwards. Yeah, it sucks to have to tell your customers something like that, but it has to be done and delaying is just gonna make things worse.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
