Some email service providers experiencing DDoS attacks

[spc3rd]

Over the past few days, there have been reports of some email service providers (mostly private ESP's) being subjected to DDoS attacks. Among the affected providers reported thus far are, Protonmail, VFEMail, Neomailbox, Runbox, and Zoho.

An on-going article on the issue can be viewed at the Wilder's Security Forums link shown below:

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/ ... ck.381307/.

[Jeff]

Thanks for the link. It's a mad world...

[mjs]

VFEmail of which I have about 6 accounts was down due to a DDoS attach as of 9:48AM 11/4/15 and were not back up until 11/7/15 at 4:19PM PST on a temporary IP and still as of now remain on the temporary IP. My emails between that time have still not been recovered and by now it is clear that the missing emails were bounced and will not get migrated back and it looks like I'll have to reestablish some of our regular email services as a result. Rick Havokmon at VFEmail as a relatively small outfit was at some point considering the possibility of actually shutting down.

There was a real barrage of DDoS attacks over this time, here are some links on this: Barrage of DDoS Attacks Bring Down ProtonMail; $6000 in Bitcoin Ransom Paid, How extorted e-mail provider got back online after crippling DDoS attack, ProtonMail Paid Hackers $6000 Ransom in Bitcoin to Stop DDoS Attacks. Protonmail has launched a donation campaign to try and survive.

[Jeff]

It's interesting that Runbox said:
"Among the messages that arrived following the attack, was a message apparently from the attackers. They described their message as an apology, and said that attacking Runbox was a mistake and that we should not pay them. They were keen to point out that they were not behind the sustained attack on ProtonMail. They insisted that while they were responsible for the initial 15 minute attack on ProtonMail, the ongoing attack was not of their doing. "
- https://blog.runbox.com/2015/11/ddos-at ... of-events/

Which adds some questions as to what really happened.

[mjs]

Interesting stuff....

It's almost as if the attackers target those who they may have an vendetta with of some kind, but it's probably more to do with who they think will or can pay versus those who they think either can't or probably won't. Who knows, it sure seems strange to me.

[mjs]

VFEmail reported that Armada was on the attack AGAIN as of late afternoon yesterday starting around 4:00PM which nearly overwhelmed VFEmail. Anti-DDoS VPS was eventually suspended due to attacks and once again Rick at VFEmail was on the brink until thanks to Tucker Preston at as203959.net for providing help to mitigate any further attacks VFEmail will survive to live another day.

[mjs]

Twitter: Attacks against @VFEmail return this time only bigger. Nearing 200Gbps.

What started as a simple digital ransom quickly escalated into a trans-continental networking battle: how two small companies fought off one of Europe's largest DDoS attacks.