DOS Attack Takes Down ReelChanges.org
December 26, 2008
Well, I guess it had to happen. Some malicious idiot picked XMAS eve to stage a DOS brute force attack on ReelChanges.org and successfully took the site down this morning. We’re currently working with our ISP to restore service as quickly as possible but I have been advised that it may be two to three days before we can safely bring the server back up because it has been infected with sophisticated malware of some sort. Our tech team leader wants to carefully examine what happened and figure out how we can prevent similar attacks before reinstalling the OS, system files, etc. ReelChanges users can rest assured that no critical user data (such as credit card numbers) have been compromised (they are all stored on Google’s server). In addition, all user files have been fully preserved. Perhaps we should be flattered that someone thinks us worthy of being attacked in this way. With any luck, we’ll be able to prevent future attacks of this sort and, in any event, we’ll be back in business shortly. Thanks for your patience and my apologies to anyone who may be inconvenienced. As for me, if the goal of the attacker was to make me angry they have failed. My only emotion is pity for anyone or any organization that would stoop to such as thing. A DOS attack may slow us down for a few days — but it will not stop us. I’ll update my blog when reelchanges is back up.
