Forums > Social Chat > HoP outage earlier
Login/Join to ParticipateSitting down facing forward . . .
2,387 posts
Location: Christchurch, New Zealand
Hi all,
We certainly noticed, and some of you have also - our website was probably out of action from about midnight through til around 11am NZ time last night/this morning. Connection might have been sporadic at first and then solidly "out" towards the end.
It seems our servers host was subjected to a rather determined DOS (Denial of Service) Attack which subsequently overloaded access and eventually crashed the server. All is apparantly now back to normal but e-mails are still backed up and will take a while to come through. It is possible, some orders and enquiries will have a delay on them as a result.
Info at this stage is sketchy, but we understand the attack was directed at our host server rather than at HoP, but all the other customers of the host were affected. As far as we know no information was lost or hacked - it was just a brute force overloading that restricted access.
We apologise for any disruption this caused any of you on the site or the forum, and will be following the host's review of what happened and why the system failed.
Aint technology a wonderful thing?!!
regards
George
Written by: Doc Lightning talking about Marmite in Kichi's Intro thread
I have several large jars of the stuff. I actually like it... a little. And don't tell anyone I admitted to it. 
Will carpal your tunnel in a minute.
3,286 posts
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Thanks for the heads up George, and kudos to the personnel who restored the servers to functionality
ॐ
Owner of burningoftheclavey 
Owned by Lost83spy
Momma Bear
4,525 posts
Location: Telford, Shrops, United Kingdom
Hoppers are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly.
237 posts
From a purely curious perspective, any idea what type of exploit they used to DoS attack it?
Sitting down facing forward . . .
2,387 posts
Location: Christchurch, New Zealand
An update - the problem has turned out to be not actually a DoS attack. There was some hardware failure in the server system which resulted in the other HW raising more queries which made it appear to be a DoS attack. I could get more precise, but it involves the use of TLA's (Three Letter Acronymn's!!
) and most people will no doubt glaze over and go all floppy (which is not to be encouraged!).This has been fixed and fail-over HW added, with additional changes possible as they further review the fault mechanism and future proofing alterations that can be made as a lesson learnt.
It seems that our site was among the hardest hit in terms of impact/availability!
We think all the queed e-mails have flushed through by this morning (NZ time), so if you haven't had an expected reply/order confirmation from us from yesterday, please check in with us to make sure - better sure than sorry as they say.
Thanks all
George
Written by: Doc Lightning talking about Marmite in Kichi's Intro thread
I have several large jars of the stuff. I actually like it... a little. And don't tell anyone I admitted to it.
Carpal \'Tunnel
5,814 posts
Location: Perth, Australia
I must be kicking my HOP addiction, it didnt affect me
Is it the Truth?
Is it Fair to all concerned?
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Im in a lonely battle with the world with a fish to match the chip on my shoulder. Gnu in Binnu in a cnu
master of disaster
3,354 posts
Location: New York, USA
I didn't have internet, so I'd no idea till I heard it from some addicts
kyrian: I've felt your finger connect with me many times
lou kitten: sneaky little meatball..
ezz: please corrupt me more
coming to a country near you
4,696 posts
Location: home of the tiney toothy bear, Australia
i've been an addict, but the poo uni accommodation services internets has put me into rehab
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