Support phone line problem 5/1/2018 – resolved

Calls to our support phone line are failing because of a telco problem.  If you need to report a problem or ask for help, send email to support@his.com to open a ticket, or click here.

Update:  as of 8:30 PM 5/1/2018 the telco problem has been resolved.  Support tickets can be opened at 301-255-0500, option 2, or via email or web.

Centurylink data center issue – 12/12/2017 – resolved

There is currently an outage affecting our Sterling, VA facility, colocated with Centurylink.  The outage is being investigated.

Some services are impacted, including mail.his.com and several other mail servers.

Update:  as of 4:08 PM EST all services were restored.  Outage duration was 71 minutes.

mail.his.com emergency maintenance 11/12/2017 – resolved

Because of an issue with the server that hosts mail.his.com, we had to perform an emergency backup and restore Sunday afternoon, 11/12/2017.  This caused incoming mail for his.com and hers.com addresses to go missing for a few hours.  We were able to re-deliver all of the missing mail, so no incoming mail was lost.  Depending on your email software, the Sunday afternoon email might appear out of order if your software lists the messages by time received rather than time sent, but it’s all there.

If you manually moved mail from one folder to another on mail.his.com Sunday afternoon, those changes reverted.  Your mail is all there, in its original locations.

If you have any filters set up to move mail to folders other than your INBOX as it comes in, those filters worked when the mail was redelivered and your mail is where you expect it.

If you sent mail Sunday afternoon using mail.his.com, your mail was sent but copies weren’t retained in your ‘sent’ folder.

Petya Ransomware Attack 6/27/2017

There is a nasty ransomware virus that exploits vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows and Office that is spreading rapidly worldwide.  Once one computer on a LAN/WLAN is infected the virus can spread to other computers over the ethernet or WiFi.

What you can do:  apply all of the latest Microsoft updates now.

More information:  WordFence Blog   Forbes    The Guardian

Worldwide ransomware attack 5/12/2017

On May 12, 2017, hackers exploiting a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows have attacked a large number of PCs worldwide, including hospitals in the UK and elsewhere and have infected vulnerable PCs with “ransomware” demanding payment in order to unlock the infected computer.  The malware propagates by tricking email recipients into clicking on infected attachments.  Once a PC is infected it looks for other vulnerable Windows PCs on the local network and spreads further, so one infected PC can infect a whole LAN.

Microsoft patched this vulnerability in March – if you have your PC set to automatically download and install updates, you’re probably safe, but we advise that you go into Windows Update on your PC and check for  updates and make sure that all available updates have been installed.

This exploit is sufficiently serious that Microsoft has released a patch that also covers Windows XP, which has been unsupported for some time.  More information on the patch:    Microsoft

News:   BBC   NY Times   Mashable

Delayed mail to his.com and hers.com domains – resolved

Barracuda developed a problem today in their cloud layer, and some mail to addresses using the his.com and hers.com domain has been delayed.  Outgoing mail from those domains has not been affected.

Barracuda is still working on the issue, but we’ve rerouted incoming his.com/hers.com mail and mail is coming in normally now.  There is undelivered mail in queue and we’re working through that queue as quickly as we can.

This only affects addresses using his.com and hers.com – no other domains are affected.

Update 6:15 PM 11/2/2016:  Barracuda’s Cloud layer is still having problems – this may be a prolonged denial-of-service attack.  Our workaround is in place, all queued mail has been delivered, and new mail for his.com/hers.com is being delivered immediately.

Update 3:50 PM 11/3/2016:  Barracuda says the problem has been resolved.  We’re monitoring closely.

Sterling, VA – partial outage

3:15 PM 5/24/2016:  A file server has failed at our Sterling, VA data center and some web sites are down.  We are restoring the affected sites from backup and will follow up with site owners as the sites are restored.

5:40 PM 5/24/2016:  All sites affected by the hardware failure have been restored.

Warning: Phishing attacks against domain owners – fradulent suspension notices

Domain registrar OpenSRS warns that there is an ongoing phishing attack against domain owners.  The object is to trick you into providing credentials that will let the bad guys hijack your domain.

If you get email claiming that your domain has been suspended, do not click any of the links or reply to the email even if the message looks legitimate.  If you’re an HIS customer, report the email to support@his.com and we’ll help determine your domain’s actual status.


 

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You may have heard that many high-profile domain registrars are being targeted by a massive phishing attack against domain owners.

We have received reports that some of those attacks are using Tucows branded emails to target some of our resellers and possibly end users all over the world. The fraudulent emails claim that a particular domain name has been suspended and ask users to click a link. domainabuse@tucows.com.org is being used as “From” and “Reply-to” addresses.

We are asking all OpenSRS resellers to be extra vigilant of these fraudulent suspension notices. In case you or your end users receive an email from tucows.com.org:

  • Do not click any links
  • Do not reply to the email
  • Do not call any phone numbers listed within the email

We strongly encourage all resellers to communicate this information to their end users.

The OpenSRS team