Unscheduled downtime #2

3:23pm

All services are currently not accessible and we are working with RackSpace to remedy the situation.  At this time RackSpace believes it to be a DDOS attack on one of our customers.  They are working to try and isolate which area the attack is occurring and to remedy the situation.

3:45 pm

We have determined that it was a DDOS attack both last night and today that brought down the network.  The store which is under attack has been isolated to stop the huge surge in traffic from affecting other sites and customers.  We will be contacting the affected merchant.  All other sites and services are now operating as normal.

To read more about DDOS attacks use this link.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial-of-service_attack

Essentially a DDOS attack is an attempt to overwhelm a service so that legitimate users cannot connect.

4:45 pm

If your site is still down please contact us via our help desk, there are a few sites that were on the same ip as the attacked site which are still down.  We are working to verify each of these sites to ensure they are not being attacked and to move them to a new unaffected ip address.

8:45 pm

We are continuing to closely monitor all services in connection with our host RackSpace.  All services have been running normally with no further evidence of attack on the remaining sites.  The affected merchant has been contacted and their site is temporarily offline to protect the network from being overrun until the attack is over.