The site may be down for slow for some of you.  I'm in the middle of a distributed denial of service attack wherein 100+ computes attempt to brute-force access the site.  I'm working with my server provider to isolate the issue.  

Bear with.  



Don

Aha! Well, I'm glad it's not just me.  

What a pain in the butt for you, Don.

I don't get the point of DOS'ing a site like this.

Everybody click on the ads so Don can afford Cloudflare

Glad I saw this. I thought my PC was finally crapping out on me. Lol

Was out - normal today

Why are they attacking this site? Distributed seems too orchestrated for a little old writing site to me. It must be personal.

Quick update.  I don't think it is personal.  It is a distributed attack coming primarily from Romania and Albania. This looks like a script kiddie attack directed at the WordPress login trying to brute force the password which is what brought down the server.  I've blocked that, but still hundreds of pings to the site per second slows things down.

- Don

Kids stuck inside with nothing better to do than work on their hacker skills.  

Quoted from Grandma Bear Kids stuck inside with nothing better to do than work on their hacker skills.

The part of a script kiddie assault that takes the most skill is hitting the CTRL and V keys at the same time.

Still having issues? Portal loads fine. Individual threads seem to be okay. Recent posts does not work. I also typed something lengthy up in the plague thread earlier, but when I went to post it, the website timed out and my post got lost.

Quoted from Grandma Bear Still having issues? Portal loads fine. Individual threads seem to be okay. Recent posts does not work. I also typed something lengthy up in the plague thread earlier, but when I went to post it, the website timed out and my post got lost.

HAving problems today myself - timing o ut

Another attack.  I've reset the server.  We should be good for a while, now.



Don

Is it just me, or is the site slow again? I'm having trouble opening some stuff and getting time-outs.

Go on, say it's just me.  

Not just you, Libby. I'm still having issues as well.

Quoted from Zack Not just you, Libby. I'm still having issues as well.

Hi Folks,

Apologies for the issues.  I've  bounced the server and am investigating.

Don

Still having a hard time getting in here sometimes. 50/50 chance. Portal button works better than recent posts button which almost never works. When it does it takes so long to load the page it sometimes times out...

Don, just lemme know who I gotta sic cousin Vito on...

Capisce?

Fugghedaboudit...

AJR

Quoted from ajr Don, just lemme know who I gotta sic cousin Vito on... Capisce? Fugghedaboudit... AJR

I would love that.  

I've finally broken down and am in the middle of working with a security provider.  They are scanning the site atm.  I hope this helps to improve the uptime.

Don

Quoted from PKCardinal Can someone explain to me what the goal of a DDoS attack on a site like this is? Is it just general jerkiness? Or, is there an actual point?

General jerkiness. And to show they can do it.  

Actually, it isn't a DDoS attack, it is a distributed brute force attack. Someone is trying to brute force crack my Word Press password. While I removed the login file, still having essentially several hundred pings per second to the site eventually slows it down long enough to bring it down.

In the past it was easy for me to just block a particular IP address or two or a country, but with VPNs and the shear number of zombie computers available, the hackers can bring several thousand different IPs to bear, more than I can keep track of.

A few years ago, I had an attack from Romania.  I just blocked the entire country, but down the attacks are coming from all over the world.



And the mods will probably delete this since it is off topic.

- Don

I'm not able to write any comments on front page articles. Is this to help stop the attacks?

The error I get is below if it helps.

Access Denied - Sucuri Website Firewall
If you are the site owner (or you manage this site), please whitelist your IP or if you think this block is an error please open a support ticket and make sure to include the block details (displayed in the box below), so we can assist you in troubleshooting the issue.

Block details:
Your IP:     92.11.110.33
URL:     http://www.simplyscripts.com/wp-comments-post.php
Your Browser:     Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/81.0.4044.138 Safari/537.36
Block ID:     CMB055
Block reason:     Comments and xmlrpc are being blocked on this site.
Time:     2020-05-21 07:00:36
Server ID:     13017

Anyone else getting an ad every time they try to get on the discussion board?

I'm not getting an ad, Zack. But I'm still getting a lot of lag.

I've been going to the Portal page like Pia suggested instead of recent posts and things kick in a lot quicker.

Quoted from LC I'm not getting an ad, Zack. But I'm still getting a lot of lag.

It only happens when I try to access the discussion board from the home page. Maybe it's something on my end. I need a new computer. Lol

That happened to me a few weeks back but not recently.

Quoted from MarkRenshaw I'm not able to write any comments on front page articles. Is this to help stop the attacks? The error I get is below if it helps. Access Denied - Sucuri Website Firewall If you are the site owner (or you manage this site), please whitelist your IP or if you think this block is an error please open a support ticket and make sure to include the block details (displayed in the box below), so we can assist you in troubleshooting the issue. Block details: Your IP:     92.11.110.33 URL:     http://www.simplyscripts.com/wp-comments-post.php Your Browser:     Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/81.0.4044.138 Safari/537.36 Block ID:     CMB055 Block reason:     Comments and xmlrpc are being blocked on this site. Time:     2020-05-21 07:00:36 Server ID:     13017

Mark,

Thanks for pointing this out.  Let me take a look.  I'm still figuring out the security software.

Don

Zack,

Next time you get an add, can you grab a screenshot?

Don

Quoted from Don Zack, Next time you get an add, can you grab a screenshot?

Shouldn't be a problem.

Don - I just sent you a screenshot of the ad that popped up for me. From my phone, it occurs when going from homepage to the discussion board. It's never happened from a desktop or laptop.

Quoted from JEStaats Don - I just sent you a screenshot of the ad that popped up for me. From my phone, it occurs when going from homepage to the discussion board. It's never happened from a desktop or laptop.

Henceforth, All Users Must Use a Laptop!

j/k.  Thanks for the info.  I'll go see why Google is screwing me (probably my error).

Don

Sent ya' a screenshot, Don. Hope it helps.

Quoted from Zack Sent ya' a screenshot, Don. Hope it helps.

Zack, (and John)

It does.  

I've made an adjustment to the template.  Let me know if you are still seeing the ad.  I don't need another screenshot.

Don

I was only seeing an ad when accessing from my phone. But all I had to do was go back and click again and it would bring me to the discussion board from the home page.