Thanks to everyone that reached out to me directly over the last few days to offer support, ideas and resources on how to handle the recent cyber attacks on DealerRefresh. It was extremely appreciated.
This isn’t the first time but definitely the worst attack we’ve experienced through-out the last 10 years. From what we were able to track, we still believe the attacks were set forth here within the walls of the U.S. but I’m hoping this wasn’t something set up to attack DealerRefresh and only DealerRefresh on purpose. I can’t imagine it was.
The 2 main attacks we were experiencing were Brute Force and DDOS.
Brute Force is when bots and scripts try different password combinations to get control of a website.
DDOS stands for Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). This attack is an attempt to take out your website and/or server by overwhelming it with sudden traffic from multiple sources.
We spent quite a bit of time and resources over the last several days to keep the attacks from effecting DealerRefresh too much but if you were on either the blog or forums during a heavy traffic/attack period, you no doubt experienced some extremely slow load times or complete time outs. For that, I apologize. I know it’s very frustrating when you’re in the middle of commenting or posting a new thread, and the website times out.
On the positive side, as of right now we have been 100% stable over the last 48+ hours with zero attacks or heavy load times. We’ve been 90% over the last several days. The attacks (Brute Force) never made their way past our line of security. Not that we house any highly personal or sensitive information, but ever since introducing the forums I have had security measures in place to prevent the possibility of being hacked and having our members (your) information placed in a vulnerable situation.
When I started DealerRefresh 10 years ago, I would have NEVER anticipated the time, money and resources that go into keeping a resource and community secure from attacks and hacks. Especially the money portion. For that, PLEASE take a moment and check out our sponsors.
Much of our traffic are community refreshers re-visiting the blog and forums several times a week to several times a day. For you, I’m sure the banner ads often fade into the background after awhile, until the vendor changes up their design. Our sponsors are extremely relevant to 90% of our reader base, that most likely being you. You never know what new services or features our sponsors provide. We often overlook particular services because we think we already know what services they offer. But you may be surprised.
DealerRater
Dominion Dealer Solutions
Octane by Dashboard
ActivEngage
AutoAlert
Cars.com
PureCars
AutoMotion
CarGurus
WalkAround Video
CarFax
eLead One
Contact at Once
So again, take a moment and click a link(s) above or the banner(s) of our Sponsors to review what current feature and services each of them provide. They’re Sponsorships is what keeps DealerRefresh alive and moving forward during times like last week, when someone decides they’re going to have some fun and take out a valuable industry resource.
Thanks again to everyone that showed your support.
Jeff
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