[Greennet-l] GreenNet service update 7 August 2013

[GreenNet User Support]

Dear GreenNet community,

Many of you have experienced problems connecting to GreenNet email
and websites during the last few days. On Thursday 1st August there
was a massive distributed denial of service ("DDoS") attack on one
of our web servers which denied all access to most GreenNet
services, as well as affecting the systems of our networking
provider and other networks throughout the UK and beyond. Our
networking provider responded that day by completely cutting off
connectivity to all our servers. We have worked over the past days
to investigate the attack and demand that connectivity to our
systems be reinstated by our suppliers.

There was a period of partial service from Sunday onwards. At 1030
this morning, Wednesday 7th August, network connections from our
servers to all remaining parts of the internet were reinstated, so
GreenNet systems should once again be fully operational. We will now
focus on investigating the attack itself in order to try to
determine its origins as well as its exact target. The attack
targeted an individual server where we hosted dozens of websites.
Thus, we continue to investigate the attack in order try to
determine which specific site the attack intended to knock offline,
as well as taking advice on possible legal recourse. We are still
very busy, but technically services have returned to normal. We are
also reviewing our contingency plans to protect civil society
activists from digital threats, and have increased redundancy in our
systems and researched other suppliers.

We will keep you all informed as and when we are able to share
further information. We apologise for the disruption this has caused
to your work. Thank you for your patience over the last few days,
and as always we are grateful for your custom and support. If you
notice any residual problems, do get in contact with us. We will
continue to post updates on our web page <http://www.gn.apc.org> and
Twitter feed <https://twitter.com/GreenNetISP>.

Many thanks,

The GreenNet collective

-- 
GreenNet supports a progressive community working for Peace,
the Environment, Gender Equality and Social Justice, through
the use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs).

GreenNet, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT
UK Tel:  0845 055 4011
Intl:    +44 (0)20 7065 0935
Fax:     +44 (0)20 7065 0936
Registered in England & Wales, Company No. 02070438

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/pipermail/greennet-l/attachments/20130807/dad3204f/attachment.html>