[AARA] Email Problems

[Herman Campbell]

Guys and Gals:  I am experiencing some problems with my Internet 
provider concerning my email.  It seems like I cannot send bulk email on 
my reflector, however I can send single emails.  I hope they have this 
problem fixed soon, so bear with me.  See below for explanation.

Herman
KN5GRK



  LUS Fiber victim of Internet attack


On Tuesday evening and again Wednesday morning, someone intentionally 
dumped a mass amount of data onto the LUS Fiber Internet servers, 
crashing the system.

The attack came about a week after the LUS Fiber system's e-mail server 
malfunctioned, depriving customers of e-mail service for several days, 
Lafayette Utilities System Director Terry Huval said. The two events are 
not related, he said.

"I want to reassure our customers that, unlike highly-publicized attacks 
on Target and Bank of America, no customer data was compromised, as the 
attackers were apparently interested in making a sport out of 
intentionally impacting our Internet service through overload," he said.

The event was an attack, not a hack, Huval said. Instead of stealing 
data, the perpetrators dumped data onto the system, he said.

Federal authorities have been contacted, Huval said.

Ironically, Tuesday evening Huval assured the Lafayette City-Parish 
Council that problems with the LUS Fiber e-mail system had been 
repaired. E-mail storage problems occurred Oct. 29 and were resolved by 
Monday. A new e-mail system will be installed in early 2015, he said.

Around 8 p.m. Tuesday, Huval learned of an attack on the LUS Fiber 
Internet firewall, something that had occurred a few times over the past 
month and had been addressed by adjusting settings on the firewall 
filters, he said.

Tuesday's attack took down the entire system, Huval said. It was 
operating again by 3 a.m. Wednesday, but crashed again around 7 a.m., 
cutting off Internet access to all LUS Fiber customers, he said.

Some customers are able to regain service by disconnecting power to 
their Internet routers, waiting 30 seconds and reconnecting power.

Equipment is being delivered Wednesday evening and technicians and 
engineers will be working around the clock to get service back up, 
possibly by Thursday morning, Huval said.

LUS Fiber has effectively installed and operated state-of-the-art 
firewall protection systems and has upgraded those systems as Internet 
attackers have become more sophisticated, he said.

If customers continue to experience problems after resetting their 
router, please call LUS Fiber at 99-FIBER for assistance.




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