DDoS attack against FastMail

[goob]

I was going to ask what the purpose is of doing a DDoS attack but then read the post about the ransom (thanks for posting that). I'd not use a provider that paid a ransom of any kind, and I hope FM doesn't resort to doing that. It would just encourage the same type of behavior in the future.

[walesrob]

Fine here in UK. Must have been a short outage, maybe they were expecting it after all the hoo-haa with other email providers.

[goob]

Seems fine for me now but was down for a short bit just a few minutes ago.

[n5bb]

You can keep track of these here:
http://www.fastmailstatus.com/

Fastmail was down for a short time for me about an hour ago.

Bill

[BritTim]

Hopefully, these scum will shortly recognize that FM is not a soft target and focus their efforts elsewhere. The Pingdom reports indicate that, in spite of these DDOS attacks, FM has managed about 99% availability over the last 24 hours. This is why I do not begrudge FM a relatively high $ per GB figure. We pay for reliability.

[Luzo]

Originally Posted by BritTim

Hopefully, these scum will shortly recognize that FM is not a soft target and focus their efforts elsewhere. The Pingdom reports indicate that, in spite of these DDOS attacks, FM has managed about 99% availability over the last 24 hours. This is why I do not begrudge FM a relatively high $ per GB figure. We pay for reliability.

Well, let's hope they pay enough $ to NYI (their primary datacenter) as it all pertains to them.

[BritTim]

With these sophisticated DDoS attacks, mitigation normally needs to be a shared effort. Certainly, boundary defense is an important part of this, and FM chose well in trusting their service to a well-prepared competent data centre. However, I would be surprised if FM got away without having to block stuff at the server level also.

[Luzo]

Originally Posted by BritTim

However, I would be surprised if FM got away without having to block stuff at the server level also.

Maybe, I am very far form being an expert in this field. But I would have thought that the mitigation has to be on a 'network level' rather than on a server level, as by then it is a bit too late (would the routers cope with a very high load of traffic?). One thing they could do is use a CDN (e.g. cloudflare), at the (very high, to me at least) cost of privacy.

[Just Bill]

I've experienced no problems with my email. Seems they need to pick a fight with a smaller company.

[Tsunami]

Checked my account (I'm in Belgium, I have a free account predating the switch to paid-only registrations) ; worked flawlessly here.

[robn]

We've been laying low for a few days while we get improved mitigation in place. We think we're ready now, so we've posted this:

http://blog.fastmail.com/2015/11/11/...ion-this-week/

[goob]

From the blog:

We do not respond to extortion attempts, and we will not pay these criminals under any circumstances.

That makes me very happy. Thank you!

[dodorkahedron]

I'm very impressed with how FM and NYI handled this. I appreciate the advance notice of possible service interruptions this week as they mitigate any further attacks. I much prefer that to paying ransom to miscreants!

My account is due for renewal, and I'm pleased to say I will be on board for another five years.

[Just Bill]

Just the fact that Protonmail gave into their demands is enough to make me NEVER want to use their service

[DumbGuy]

Originally Posted by Just Bill

Just the fact that Protonmail gave into their demands is enough to make me NEVER want to use their service

I'd say cut 'em some slack. According to their blog, they had enormous pressure on them from their ISP and hundreds of other businesses that were affected as collateral damage. It sounded like they resisted paying as much as they could.