Fastmail Fights Off Ransom Cyberattack
 

https://fastmail.blog/company/fastma...om-cyberattack
Oct 26

Well written. Even I get it. :D

Let's just hope it's another six years until the next major DDoS attack against Fastmail.

As an aside, it appears that a long supported, but somewhat underused, protection against temporary unavailability at Fastmail once again worked well. This is configuring aliases (both Fastmail aliases and your own domain aliases) to deliver mail to a backup account at an unaffected backup mail provider as well as Fastmail. Because of the way Fastmail's MX servers are distributed and configured, this allows the backup mail service to receive email even when delivery to Fastmail's main data centre is not possible (and where you cannot access the messages if they are delivered). In my case, the backup mail service is not as convenient to use, mostly because I only use it in an emergency, and the messages (new and old) are not properly organised. However, it does mean I can always access urgent messages during events such as the latest DDoS attack.

At least the services (Basic/Plus) of Pobox were not hit. Maybe with some modifications…… 🤔

I was also able to use my backup email provider, with all my Fastmail email coming into the backup email just fine.
I was surprised (happily) that the DDOS attack didn't affect the forwarding to the backup provider.
So I'm glad about that "MX servers are distributed ...." thingy that you describe above. ;)
Worked for me.

It would be nice if they found out who did it!!!!!

The link now fails -- the URL of this blog report was changed to:
https://fastmail.blog/company/fastma...m-cyberattack/

It was the Cursed Patriarch ...
Apparently he eventually dies, but the story is not written yet...

Yea I hear that!!!!!!!

Can you elaborate on this? I.E., give an example of how to set this up. This requires the domain be pointed to Fastmail's DNS servers?

I manage my own DNS records at a 3rd party DNS service and for some years I split my MX records between Fastmail and Tuffmail in the early days of Fastmail when it wasn't as reliable as it is now but am not doing so now. I now use my alternate email provider (Tuffmail) for additional domains not hosted at Fastmail. Am still considering where to move those before year end.

The support I am referring to requires that you are using the Fastmail MX servers. Those servers have specific support to relay any messages to any non Fastmail email accounts identified by your alias settings. Delivery is controlled by the Delivery to when setting up the alias for either your own domain or a Fastmail alias. This can be used for any email you receive except that to your main account email. What you should do is specify both your Fastmail account and your backup account as targets for your received email.

This works well because the MX servers are geographically distributed and not reliant on the main datacentre used by Fastmail being available.

Fastmail has provided this support for many years, and I can confirm that it works.

Does FM have a policy regarding payment of ransomware demands?

I'm pretty sure they've stated in their blog that they never payout ransom demands. This is in the context of DDOS attacks, but I would assume it spills over to ransomware as well.

The official policy of Fastmail is:
See:
https://fastmail.blog/company/fastma...m-cyberattack/

Bill