Technical issues

[Drop.com.au]

We are experiencing some technical issues at the moment and the Drop.com.au site is temporarily unavailable.

Please bear with us.

Andrew

 

[Data Glasses]

wow still down today

 

[Drop.com.au]

Thank you for your patience. The following email has now been sent to Drop.com.au customers…

Dear Valued Customer,

We are contacting you because Drop.Com.Au recently discovered that certain proprietary data files were accessed without authorization on January 20, 2013.

Certain customer account information including user names, passwords, email addresses, and account information, including encrypted credit card information, may have been accessed by these unauthorized individuals. Immediately upon learning of this situation we took the Drop.Com.Au site offline.

In response to this discovery we temporarily shut down access to the network, investigated what happened, and have ensured that immediate steps are taken to enhance security. Among these steps, after the network is back up, we will require all customers to reset passwords before logging in as a precautionary measure.

We are also notifying you so you can take action along with our efforts to minimize or eliminate any potential harm. We encourage you to take measures now to help prevent and detect any potential misuse of your information including a review of your credit card statements, through immediate online access to your statements where available, and, if you see any unauthorized activity, promptly contact your financial institution.

Even if you do not find any suspicious activity on your credit card statements, we recommend that you check your statements regularly thereafter and be aware of communications that seek personal information.

Additional guidance for individuals is available on the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner's (OAIC) website at www.oaic.gov.au and the Attorney-General's Department website at www.ag.gov.au/www/agd/agd.nsf/page/Crimeprevention_Identitysecurity.

It is also important to note that domain name passwords were not stored and therefore have not been compromised, however auDA have requested the Registry to reset all passwords.

We take this matter very seriously and will continue to work to ensure that all appropriate measures are taken to protect your personal information from unauthorized access.

We regret any inconvenience that this may cause you. We will advise when Drop.Com.Au is back online. We have proactively renewed all domain names expiring between January 18th and 30th to ensure no service interruptions. If you require domain names to be renewed or if you have any questions while we remediate this issue, please contact us at support@drop.com.au.

Kind regards,
Support team
Drop.Com.Au

 

[Blue Wren]

Thank you for your patience. The following email has now been sent to Drop.com.au customers…

Lets hope Drop.com.au recovers soon.

Internal or external unauthorised access?

 

[Lucas]

Thank you for your patience. The following email has now been sent to Drop.com.au customers…

As of 11pm Adelaide time this is the first I have heard about this - no email..

Hope you guys get up and running soon.

 

[Oz.]

Weird...I didn't get it either.

 

[johno69]

I got the email but my partner didn't.

All good though, we both read the above.

 

[neddy]

We will advise when Drop.Com.Au is back online. We have proactively renewed all domain names expiring between January 18th and 30th to ensure no service interruptions. If you require domain names to be renewed or if you have any questions while we remediate this issue, please contact us at support@drop.com.au.

What a horrible and unfortunate thing to have happened. But as we know, this sort of thing can and does happen.

Netfleet was zapped last February; and they handled things really well and got back online quickly.

http://www.netfleet.com.au/blog/other-domains/netfleet-security-breach-update/ and http://www.dntrade.com.au/netfleet-system-outage-2012-02-t4567.html?t=4567

And most recently, auDA's website was hacked: http://www.dntrade.com.au/auda-hacked-t6442.html

I have a lot of domains at Drop.com.au because I like their service and prices (I also have many at Netfleet as well); and so naturally I was very worried when this happened and I couldn't access their site to do renewals and COR's etc. But I found out that the small team at Drop have been working feverishly over the long weekend to try and get things sorted (dealing with auDA and AusRegistry).

The fact that they proactively renewed domains that were about to expire / or had just expired (at their expense!) is absolutely terrific, confidence inspiring service imho. Thanks Peter.

One other thing that I really like about Drop.com.au is that you can opt not to have them store your credit card details. In other words, you can just pay invoices as and when you need to, and then tick the box and your c/c details are wiped. That's what I do - I'm paranoid about that sort of stuff.

Like many members here, I'm also a regular participant on the drops at both Netfleet and Drop, and so I'm glad Drop is still going to be around to provide healthy competition for Netfleet. Our marketplace needs both of them.

So best wishes to the Drop team in the days ahead as you deal with these issues.

Cheers, Ned

 

[geodomains]

To Drop Guys and Girls,
Hope it all get's sorted out without to much drama.

Cheers
Don

 

[domainlover]

Unfortunate but I know the drop guys will bounce back and they always bend over backwards to help when you need them.

 

[FirstPageResults]

It's a real shame that this has happened, but as Neddy pointed out our industry does get targeted from time to time. Wasn't too long ago that disaster stuck for DistributeIT and before that Bottle Domains.

I hope you guys can get back on your feet relatively quickly. Good luck with it all.

 

[chris]

Thanks for the update Drop, much appreciated.

As Ned said, unfortunately this sort of thing can happen to anyone.

I also appreciate that you've been proactive and kept your customers in the loop. It's reassuring as a customer to know that our domains are in good hands and you're doing everything possible to rectify the situation.

We all look forward to seeing you guys back online soon!

Cheers,
Chris

 

[findtim]

i got the email, everything else about the good service at drop has been said before.

these instances don't tarnish our view of drop, its just the world we live in.

tim

 

[Drop.com.au]

We'll we are back up, but the expired domain auction is not running currently. The following is an email sent out to customers...

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for your patience and understanding while Drop.com.au was temporarily taken offline.

Immediate steps were taken to enhance security and as a result we have now restored access to the Drop.com.au web site. In addition to these measures, all domain passwords have been reset by AusRegistry and all customers will be required to reset their Drop.com.au passwords on their next login as an added security precaution.

(Instructions for resetting Drop.com.au account passwords are included in the email)

As already mentioned, we take this matter very seriously and will continue to work to ensure that all appropriate measures are taken to protect your personal information from unauthorised access.

We are sorry for any inconvenience that this incident may have caused you.

If you have any questions about this matter please contact support@drop.com.au.

Kind regards,

Support team
Drop.Com.Au

And thanks everybody for your support. It means a lot.

Andrew

 

[johno69]

Thanks for the update Andrew.

I'm getting a 403 when trying to access the site.

 

[Drop.com.au]

Thanks for the update Andrew.

I'm getting a 403 when trying to access the site.

You may need to clear your browser cache - I experienced the same issue before I cleared my cache.

Andrew

 

[johno69]

Tried that before I posted too. Might be caching at the ISP level.

Tried here too: http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://www.drop.com.au

Same thing. Will give it some time.

 

[chris]

Thanks for the update Andrew, glad to see things back up and running.

 

[Data Glasses]

Password is reset ...............full steam ahead

 

[Drop.com.au]

Hi Guys,

The Expired Domain Auction is now up and running. If you experience any problems please try flushing your browser cache and cookies.

We are aware that users may have issues with accessing the Drop Expired Domain Auction with Firefox – in the short term please use IE or Chrome.

Thanks for your patience.

Andrew