Normally, when I make a post on SoylentNews, it's to talk about some exciting new feature, our future, or something similar.
Unfortunately though, on rare occasions, I have to make announcements like this one. Sometime between May 12-13th, one of our email accounts was breached. The account ("test1") was left over from go live, over a year and half ago, and had a very weak password protecting it. We believe that an automated password guesser was able to find and access the account. Once breached, the account was used to send a significant amount of spam until we deleted the affected account on the 14th May 2015.
As a result of the compromise, several spam services have blacklisted our mail server; we're currently working to try and get ourselves cleared whenever we become aware of one of these blocks. We do not believe any user information or sensitive data was compromised; the account in question was simply a virtual dovecot account with no corresponding UNIX account attached to it.
mechanicjay was primarily responsible for handling this and cleaning up the mess, and I wish to personally thank him and the rest of the sysops team for their handling of this issue. We are looking at taking steps to prevent a reoccurence such as using fail2ban and the like. Unfortunately, most IDS systems like fail2ban are incompatible with IPv6 which we use extensively internally within our network.
A sysops meeting is being scheduled to discuss this and other changes we're making to the infrastructure.
I will update this article (or post a new one) with additional information should it become available,
NCommander
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Kell on Monday May 18 2015, @10:29AM
Thanks for being open and up-front about this. That kind of transparency is important to keep the faith with the users. Being proactive and honest does a lot to protect the reputation of an organisation, compared to burying it and hoping nobody notices.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2015, @12:23PM
This is another great reason not to have an account here, and just to post as AC all of the time. An account that doesn't exist cannot be compromised.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2015, @01:08PM
Actually I just hacked your Anonymous Coward account, and now I can post as you! ;-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2015, @01:10PM
Are you a Cypherpunk?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2015, @02:05PM
I am the Supreme Ultimate Cypherpunk EleventyOne of all time!
I have hacked ALL the AC accounts, and NOW all your AC are belong to ME!!
Now bow down and pay tribute to me. I want all of your 'one' bits sacrificed to my Honor and Glory. Since I am feeling generous, I will let you keep your puny 'zero' bits.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2015, @05:16PM
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2015, @09:10PM
HAHAHA, DISREGARD THAT, I SUCK COCKS