Month: February 2001

Thu Feb 15 16:35:06 PST 2001 — Night Operations: Tonight we are performing a series of security updates throughout our network. We will be rebooting a number of our servers to bring them up on new Linux kernels and doing ACL work on our border routers to help mitigate the impact of a DOS on our network. We do not expect any significant down time on any of our services and, due to our load balancing, major services like email and web should be unaffected.

We will also be finishing the upgrades to our core switch, Ape, and we may need to reboot it when we are finished. If we do need to restart it, there will be a 90 sec complete network outage as it restarts.

-Kelsey, Scott, Chuck and Matt.

Wed Feb 14 10:35:13 PST 2001 — Update on mail servers. We have isolated the source of the attack and it appears that it is a mailbomb attack targeted at specific users. We have escalated the attack to the remote upstream providers and have successfully blocked the attack. -Scott, Steve, Kelsey, and Russ

Wed Feb 14 10:22:39 PST 2001 — Attack on mail servers. Our entire mail server array has been impacted by what appears to be either a) a rude or misconfigured mail host, or b) a denial of service attack. We decided to treat the situation like an attack, isolate the source, block the attack, and then harden our servers to prevent future attacks of this nature. We have completed all but the latter step, which pends further analysis. -Scott, Steve, Kelsey, and Russ

Wed Feb 14 13:24:53 PST 2001 — Though there has been no official word from Pacific Bell, DSLAM 1 in Santa Rosa is now consistently showing good performance with no problems. – Eli

Tue Feb 13 11:00:54 PST 2001 — Update on DSLAM 1. It appears that PacBell resolved the issues with DSLAM 1 here in Santa Rosa. If you still are experiencing difficulties with your DSL please let us know. -Dave

Tue Feb 13 15:24:23 PST 2001 — Update on DSLAM 1. DSLAM 1 is now completely offline. We do not have an ETR but will post one as soon as we hear from PacBell. This only affects some DSL customers in Santa Rosa. -Dave

Mon Feb 12 11:20:52 PST 2001 — Update On DSLAM 1. PacBell confirms that they are having trouble with one of the DSLAMs here in Santa Rosa. They have not given us an ETA yet on it’s repair. Please don’t forget that if your DSL is down you may still dial-in using a modem. -Kelsey & Dave Mon Feb 12 20:43:55 PST 2001 – Update: we’re seeing much lower packet loss now, but the trouble is ongoing. -Dane

Mon Feb 12 10:14:41 PST 2001 — PacBell DSL customers who are on DSLAM 1 in Santa Rosa are experience moderate (10+%) packet loss. We’ve looked at our equipment and the source of the trouble doesn’t appear to be on our side. We suspect something is wrong with either the DSLAM or PacBell’s ATM network. We’re calling PacBell now to confirm the problem and get an ETA on it’s repair. -Dave, Dane & Kelsey

Mon Feb 12 20:35:54 PST 2001 — We’ve caught over 500 copies of the “Anna.Kournikova” virus today in our filters, which means that they didn’t get into the mailboxes of our customers. We also put online filtering for the “Snowhite” virus, and have been catching quite a few copies of that as well. As these things mutate fast, we’re always playing a bit of catch-up, so be mindful of the risks in opening unknown attachments you receive. We suggest using the Windows update feature to keep your Windows PC up to date; with the current updates and a good virus filter, you’ll have less chance of having problems. -Dane & Kelsey

Mon Feb 12 13:44:18 PST 2001 — New Virus. A new virus known as “Anna.Kournikova” or “VBS/SST@MM” is rapidly spreading through the wild. We have filtering in place now for both this virus and the “Snowhite” virus which has been floating around for some time. For more information take a look at NAI’s report at vil.nai.com/vil/virusSummary.asp?virus_k=99011 -Kelsey