DDoS Attack Last Night---Please Read

[pk_LA]

So what exactly is the attack? Looks like Cloudflare is one of the end providers for the Apple Relay service. Is this merely a case of your hosting solution not being able to handle excessive connections?

Apologies if the following is in not what you are asking.

What is a DDOS attack? In essence, an overwhelming influx of data/page requests. In actuality, they involve a wide array of 'zombie' devices that make ping the servers. These typically include devices with weak security - things like household appliances such as washing machines, switches, alarm clocks, etc. They also include audio equipment as these devices have some of the weakest security. These devices get hacked and then lie in waiting to be woken up so they can ping the target. The reason for the wide array of devices is so that the ISP cannot block service to any one source making data/page requests.

Why does a website like WBF get affected even if they are not the target? Because the ISP or other related service get hammered so significantly, they often respond by throttling traffic across their clients. They do this so nobody actually becomes unavailable. But, many services get slowed down.

 

[Folsom]

What is the point to making a website seem like every other website, slow and inoperable randomly in the middle of the night.

 

[Steve williams]

Apologies if the following is in not what you are asking.

What is a DDOS attack? In essence, an overwhelming influx of data/page requests. In actuality, they involve a wide array of 'zombie' devices that make ping the servers. These typically include devices with weak security - things like household appliances such as washing machines, switches, alarm clocks, etc.

you are half correct

we WERE. the target not our ISP. There were literally hundreds and hundreds of IP addresses from 2 citing blocks coming out of Singapore hitting our server and slowing it down late in the afternoon to where it became inaccessible. Our ISP was able to to detect the flare at their end and they gave me the 2 blocks of IP addresses. I banned them and immediately thereafter our site was 100% fully operational.

As to the why I asked the same this morning and your guess is as good as mine. As I stated a few days ago we might be tagged as Google analytics have shown WBF to be the number one audio site globally but beyond that I have no idea.


We are exploring Cloud Flare but we need to be certain that adding it does not cause other problems with the site

 

[Steve williams]

So what exactly is the attack? Looks like Cloudflare is one of the end providers for the Apple Relay service. Is this merely a case of your hosting solution not being able to handle excessive connections?

We can handle things just fine but picture the server at the same moment getting hit with 400-500 separate attempts to gain access. It hiccups for a while and then it chokes as it cannot obey all of the commands. Those attempts are continuous to the point where the site gives up until the assailants are stopped, which BTW was an instant fix

 

[Steve williams]

Here is an example of what I’ve been saying about spammers using Apple Relay to hide their location. This IP is also registered to a member who can’t log on

We are getting more of these every day

 

[Steve williams]

Here is an example of what I’ve been saying about spammers using Apple Relay to hide their location. This IP is also registered to a member who can’t log on

We are getting more of these every day

View attachment 149508

The above IP address was registered to a member today who is a legit member . Checking that IP address in our data baes shows art to be registered to 4 other forum members including Ron Resnick. So you can see the dilemma that members are prevented from logging on due to a spam infested IP address. I had another member yesterday who could not log on because he too uses Apple Relay and his normal IP address was rejected by our Spam Guard and gets reported to me that they cannot log in. This creates enormous work every day to figure out what is happening and to tell the member they need to get another IP address assigned

 

[Synaxis]

The above IP address was registered to a member today who is a legit member . Checking that IP address in our data baes shows art to be registered to 4 other forum members including Ron Resnick. So you can see the dilemma that members are prevented from logging on due to a spam infested IP address. I had another member yesterday who could not log on because he too uses Apple Relay and his normal IP address was rejected by our Spam Guard and gets reported to me that they cannot log in. This creates enormous work every day to figure out what is happening and to tell the member they need to get another IP address assigned

This is a perfect example of how easy it is for us as forum uses to criticize how forums are run (not saying anyone is doing that in this instance) while we have no idea about the behind the scene effort and work you and Tom and the moderating team put into keeping this all working behind the scenes.

My hat is off to you all and a thank you for the hours you put into keeping this forum running.