Can Your Hosting Cope With A DDoS Attack Of This Magnitude? A Must Read!
Hello WA Family. A very good morning. afternoon or evening to you depending on where in the world you hail from.
4 days ago my website wasn't working when I tried to log in, this was a very unusual occurrence.
I contacted site support and within minutes it was back up and running.
I'm not the type of person who asks many questions, it is working and that's good enough for me.
However, as the day progresses my site keeps going down, support keeps fixing it even though it is Christmas eve!
Christmas morning arrives and I go to my site content builder to choose a post to publish from those already written.
Yes, we have 2 options to write content here!
I select the post-press to publish and that logs me into word press. Now I'm doing my usual editing and search engine optimization.
When finished I hit publish and for a while, nothing happens. Then a minute or so later the page says error no data was sent.
Not being a technical person I'm confused by this so I contact site support who reply within a couple of minutes on Christmas day.
They tell me they are looking into it.
I go into the live chat and speak to people wishing them a Merry Christmas and receiving many in return :-)
A short while later I'm told my site is working and sure enough it is!
After logging in I can see my post did publish and it is sitting there for all to read.
Then my site goes down again, a few hours later it is still down, Kyle one of the CEO-s comes into live chat I explain the problem with my site he escalates the support ticket and makes some enquiries for me.
He gets back to me within 5 minutes and tells me my site is under a major DDoS attack, I don-t know what that is so he patiently explains it to me.
My site is removed from its existing server and put on another one where it can all be contained and dealt with.
A few hours go by and senior site support contacts me and explains that a botnet is attacking my site and so far they have stopped 8792 ip's that are flooding my site on the dedicated server!
The attack continues for all of Christmas day and most of Boxing day. They fix it put it back online and I manage to get work done and then it is gone again.
As of 02.45 am 28th December my site has been back online.
I am so grateful for the hosting, Site support, Kyle, Carson and all of the community for all of the help and encouragement that was received at this difficult time.
Wealthy Affiliate is the best place to be to host your websites and also to learn ways of building your own online business.
If this had happened on another hosting it could have been a total disaster!
Just got back home from our holiday and am raring to go to get some new content written for my site.
I feel relaxed and refreshed after a week of peace and quiet.
My goal for 2022 is to write more content and get a Youtube channel up and running.
Have an awesome rest of your week.
Lisa. Back in sunny Tenerife :-)
Recent Comments
98
What a story, Lisa! I'm glad it seems resolved now. I can't imagine if you'd been on another server to think what might have happened. This is a real eye-opener and super strange that it happened - as I have no idea what any of that tech stuff means.
Welcome back, my friend :-)
Susan
Thank you, Susan. The attack is still happening and the website is still not working. They are destroying my credibility and all of my traffic with it!
I'm so sorry to hear that Lisa! Can't believe this is happening to you. Keep us posted. I'm wishing all the best for you. 🙏
Site support is indeed a major benefit that is glossed over here. I do not want to say overlooked, because people routinely say thank you for site support.
But as you point out this does appear to be great service.
I am glad your site has weathered the storm. I wonder why they were attacking you?
Alex
Very true Alex it was up and running most of the day but has been down again for the last 6 hours.
Support said they thought it was probably from a review that I wrote that was not favourable!
Bastards,
Well we know that the review was correct - don't we.
I hope it is all over soon.
Alex
Hi Lisa
Sorry to hear of all the issues you are having with your site and the attack.
I have tried a few times to go to your site since then. most times I can't get it online, other times it comes up but was unable to open any posts you have.
A little while ago I got the site up but got the message your site is not secure.
I tried other browsers and they won't load up on firefox, on internet explorer it gave me the same message it is not secure and not safe to click on it.
Now I came back to Chrome to try again after clearing my cache and even flushed the DNS on my side and it won't load up at all.
So there are still issue Site Support need to fix and sort out for you.
This is the error message I got on both Chrome and Internet Explorer.
but now as I said it won't even load up
You are welcome Lisa,
I try even now and then to load the site since this attack. Most times it doesn't come up and when it does it won't let me open any post.
The good thing is the pop-up works, the menu works just can't open any posts for some reason, that is when the site is up.
Just tried now and it just says the page not loading as per below image.
These things are sent to try us.
All I can do is keep letting them know and keep hoping for the best.
I'm back home now so I can get some writing done for when it is working.
I have 36 articles to publish :-)
Yes agree Lisa they are trying times.
At least you can write articles and have many to publish just a shame they can't seem to get this fixed once and for all.
I try even now and then to connect to your site but no luck as yet.
I appreciate you trying my friend.
They have said they are looking into it.
Just have to wait now :-)
Hi Lisa just tried now and it seems to be up and running fine now and I can click the posts as well.
so far all good to go.
Andre
Yea I noticed. the site comes up then which seems fine.
Then a few minutes later can't click on anything.
To the point, it shows as not secure.
There is something obviously support is either not doing right or missing a key area.
Perhaps for site support, this is out of their league who knows I hope not but this is going on far too long.
Which doesn't help you.
I have been going on the site here and there yesterday, and as I said all is ok for a few moments then bits and piece start to fall apart until it is not secure and not available.
I am sorry this is happening to you Lisa and do wish this will be over yesterday.
Shame it can take so long guess in the meantime just keep going forward and continue to write those posts to add to the many that are waiting to be posted.
take care Lisa :)
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It sounds like the team need to invest in a DDOS prevention tool I work for a large ISP within the UK and I currently see 100's of targeted attacks every day its a scary world out there. We use some amazing techniques to stop the attacks maybe I can blog about it one day haha
Glad your site was back up and running and sounds like the team have the communication and response with clients in top form art least - nice work
Hey Anthony, yes, please educate me more on this Ddos attack stuff? What is it? What are preventative measures against such a thing? Where do they originate from?
Thanks,
Trent
My site is still being attacked. Yes please blog about it.