Joe Hackman

Joe Hackman

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DNS Issues Affecting Websites and Email

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8:24AM on Monday 1/11/2010
An issue with our hosting partners DNS services is causing intermittent Email outages for many of our hosting clients. We’ve been advised that they are aware of the issue and working to resolve it. No ETA has been provided.

8:42AM 1/11/2010
We have confirmed through research, discussions with our hosting partner and testing that the DNS issues are much more widespread than we had anticipated. There is an event of some significance occurring this morning effecting a substantial number of domain names. Enom and other providers are being affected. We will update this post as soon as we have more information.

9:01AM on Monday 1/11/2010
A hashtag is now being used to track this issue on Twitter #dnsmonday please be advised this issue is affecting enom.com, register.com and any subsidiary/resale accounts in their network.

9:27AM on Monday 1/11/2010
Enom Twitter status states they are working through a DoS attack. Here is a screen capture:

Enom Twitter Status

9:34AM Monday 1/11/2010 Podcast added

10:27AM Monday 1/11/2010
According to a number of people posting on Twitter with the #dnsmonday hashtag this issue is still affecting numerous domains. Enom has stated that they are working through the DDoS attack. As many large companies have learned a small number of hosts with the right tools can bring down very large service providers. It remains to be seen who the attackers are in this case, but that will be the next chapter of this story. I did note that namebargain.com (a subsidiary of register.com) was completely offline earlier this morning but seems to be back up now. Follow  #dnsmonday on Twitter or check back here for more information. We will continue to update this article as more information becomes available.

11:29AM Monday 1/11/2010
Enom is now reporting that services are 100% restored. More details are likely to emerge throughout the day.

3:30PM Monday 1/11/2010
DDoS attacks on Enom and other Registrars are nothing new. According to a 2005 3Com white paper enom.com was attacked 15 days per month for each month January to August 2004. On August 9th, 2007 there was a high profile DoS attack that caused outages at Register.com. In 2009 there was an attack on 1/31/2009 that was of sufficient volume to deny access to dns services for about 8 hours. These are just some of the reports. Enom has a policy that they do not disclose specifics on the attacks, so it is unlikely that we will learn much more than what we already know. That said I believe that these may just be trial runs by persons testing to see how these companies running key parts of internet infrastructure respond to the events. Sort of the doorknob twist equivalent of cyber warfare. Of course since Enom is mum on the issue, we’ll be forced to speculate.

4:30PM Monday 1/11/2010 Wrap up Podcast:

Resources

Droid Does Wifi Analysis for Free

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Do not waste your money on expensive Wifi Analyzer hardware and software just pickup a Droid phone and download the Wifi Analyzer utility for free. This tool is useful in identifying networks that overlap and will allow you to determine if you’ve made the right decisions about the channel your wireless device is using. You can quickly and easily see if there is a strong wifi signal that overlaps yours. Unlike my example you should perform this analysis where you intend to USE your wifi client devices most. Here is a video demonstration for more clarity:

Warning Facebook Phishing Email

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Today I noticed a peculiar Email message from Facebook in my Quarantine. A quick investigation confirmed what I had suspected, it was a phishing attempt to compromise my Facebook account or other personal information. This video demonstrates what this message looked like and how the URL in the link gave away that it was not Facebook but in fact a .me.uk address:

Windows 7 is Ready for Business

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It has been a long time since we’ve recommended an initial release of a Microsoft Operating system for business use but we’ve reached that plateau again with Windows 7. We are encouraging our clients to implement Windows 7 when replacing existing systems. There are of course always exceptions to this recommendation, the most important being resource intensive older software applications such as design and cad software. They need to be evaluated for compatibility prior to making the shift. Your basic business machine will happily function with 7, and worse case you can offer reliable compatibility through the Windows XP Compatibility Mode.

If you are considering upgrading existing machines to Windows 7 or purchasing a new computer with Windows 7 installed feel free to contact us for an honest, experienced opinion on what you might want to consider in the process. You don’t have to be a customer or become one, but we’re pretty confident that once you get to know us you will want to be one.