Starting on October 3rd around 7:00am PT the Auction Sniper website was affected by a DDoS attack. Our engineering team has worked around the clock with our 3rd Party Data Center Services provider since the attack began to bring our services back online and ensure the stability of the platform. At this point we are monitoring for any additional attacks and our engineering team continues to implement further mitigation controls. While we want to be transparent about this attack, we will not share all the details of the attack nor our mitigation techniques to preserve future security.
What is a DDoS attack?
Most importantly, Auction Sniper was not hacked and no data breach occurred; all data and content is safe and secure. DDoS is short for Distributed Denial of Service and while there are many different types of DDoS attacks, this specific one is considered to be a “traffic” attack. This means they’re not inside our walls, rather, they’re creating a traffic jam preventing users from accessing our site.
Why was Auction Sniper attacked?
DDoS attackers are not interested in your data, they're looking to extort money from organizations by demanding a ransom to stop the attack. Basically, these malicious attackers were holding access to our website as a hostage until we paid them the sum of crypto-currency they requested. We will not participate in their demands, rather we are putting our resources towards DDoS prevention.
Industry wide, this looks like a growing trend. In the last 5 years a variety of other software companies have been hit with DDoS attacks including MailChimp, Meetup, Wikipedia, GetResponse and more. The FBI has increased their resources in this area to try and reduce the number of attacks and we have already provided them information in regards to the attack on our platform.
How was Auction Sniper impacted by this DDoS attack?
This attack prevented our customers from accessing the site and our site was down for a portion of the day. As we work to mitigate these attacks, our team is working on alternate methods to bring the site back to full functionality. You may continue to see some intermittent downtime, and we want to thank you all in advance for your patience and understanding while we work through this. We will post an announcement on Facebook, Twitter and our Community Forums once the issue has been fully resolved.
We’re here to help answer your questions
Security and customer satisfaction is our top priority and so we’re opening all lines of communication. If you have any additional questions or concerns please contact us by one of the following methods:
In case our site goes down again, you can continue to contact us or get updates on the status of resolution here on our News Community Forum.
You can also get updates by following us on Facebook or Twitter.
Email us directly at support@auctionsniper.com