Automated distributed attack targeting our site's public posts ended

[ChrissyRyan]

Seems to be okay right now.

[Northern Star Girl ✅]

@Stottie Girl  @Liz K  @Moonflower  @Dances With Trees  @ChrissyRyan  @Alana Ashleigh

Susan is aware of your reported issues and is continuing to refine her solutions.

Danielle [Northern Star Girl]
    Forum Admin

  cc:  @Susan @Devlyn @Lori Dee @Sarah B @Jessica_Rose @Mariah @Charlotte Kitty

[MistressStevie]

Another site I frequent uses cloudfare to filter out bots.  Susan's guiding hand appears much less intrusive than cloudfare asking me to verify my humanity.  AND not remembering for even a full session which. 

There are decreasing numbers of good places on the Internet.  Susans.org remains solid. 

[Susan ✅]

Hello everyone,

I want to provide a quick update regarding the recent "Temporarily Unavailable" messages some of you have encountered.

Over the past few weeks, the site has been the target of an exceptionally high volume of automated traffic. To put the scale in perspective: in a single 24-hour window, we were targeted by over 400,000 unique systems. This is an immense amount of pressure that would typically overwhelm most independent platforms.

To ensure the site remains stable and accessible for our community, I have shifted our defensive strategy. Rather than reacting to individual connections as they happen, I have implemented broad-spectrum network filtering. This allows us to deflect the vast majority of this unwanted traffic at the perimeter, long before it ever reaches our forum software or impacts our database.

What this means for you:

• Priority Access: When the "Temporarily Unavailable" message appears, it is because the system is actively prioritizing legitimate community traffic during a volume spike. It usually resolves within a few minutes.
• Perimeter Security: These improvements are designed to be invisible. They work at the connection level to ensure that our platform's data and your browsing experience remain stable.
• Ongoing Monitoring: I am continuing to refine these global filters to ensure the best balance between high-level security and ease of access.

We are successfully neutralizing the pressure on the server, and the site is now significantly more resilient than it was even a few days ago. Thank you for your continued support and for being part of this community.

[Stottie Girl]

Thank you for all your efforts Susan. With the exception of last nights 1 -2 hour outage I have only ever experienced drop outs of around 5 mins or so. This is a small price to pay to keep us safe😀

I know you have our back out there in the ether!

[Dawn Kellie]

Thank you for all you do. This is a hell of away to come back from a rest

[Alana Ashleigh]

I'm having issues again. I'm getting a temporary unavailable message.

[Stottie Girl]

Yeah, me too Alana, it's just temporary though. Not sure what we've done to warrant such an attack but hey ho. It will end soon enough when they get bored.

[ChrissyRyan]

Sometimes I push buttons and there is no error message, but nothing happens.

Eventually I get away from the current screen.  As an example the Home button seems to not work.  That is an important button.  Or Recent topics.  Or Unread Posts.  Eventually these work again.

Patience is required!

[Lori Dee ✅]

Sometimes I push buttons and there is no error message, but nothing happens.

Eventually I get away from the current screen.  As an example the Home button seems to not work.  That is an important button.  Or Recent topics.  Or Unread Posts.  Eventually these work again.

Patience is required!

I am getting that too, Chrissy. It is just lag. If you click a button, just wait. It will go.

As you said, patience is required.

[Susan ✅]

Technical Update: Server Stability Restored

I wanted to share some good news regarding the site's performance. After a three-day resurgence of heavy automated bot activity, I have successfully cleared the botnet from our network.

I have spent many hours over the last 36 hours fighting to protect your access and reclaim our community space from these intruders. This effort has successfully restored the "Hardened Territory" that is our network, making it secure once again. You should notice that the site is now significantly more responsive, with pages loading quickly and consistently. Behind the scenes, the server is running cool and quiet, having returned to its normal, efficient baseline.

I am continuing to monitor the perimeter in real-time to ensure the community remains protected, but for now, the "noise" has been neutralized. Thank you for your patience while I worked to get the botnet off our site and restore the quiet environment we all value.

See you on the boards,
— Susan💜

[Lori Dee ✅]

Thank you, Susan.

I do not imagine that was an easy fix. We all appreciate all you do for us.

[ChrissyRyan]

Thank you Susan for getting rid of the pests.

Chrissy

[Stottie Girl]

Eveything is zippier apart from going back to the home screen which takes a little while to refresh. Not a critisism, just letting you know.

Thanks for all your efforts. You're going to need to take another break to get over this one!

[Susan ✅]

We've identified and fixed the cause of the recent slow load times on the front page. The delay traced to a network-level block that inadvertently included an IP address used by Discord.gg. Because the front page pulls real-time data to display online Discord users, the server was forced to wait through a 14-second DNS timeout before the page could finish rendering.

We've updated our protected resources list so that essential third-party services — including Discord, the internet root servers, and Google's core infrastructure — are excluded from broad network blocks. These protected networks are now handled with finer granularity, allowing us to maintain rigorous security without impacting legitimate site functionality.

Load times have returned to normal. We're continuing to refine our automated security systems to prevent similar overlaps in the future while keeping the site and its users fully protected.
Thanks for your patience while we tuned the system.

[Lori Dee ✅]

Thank you, Susan!

I still get a bit of lag when I first land on Susan's and again during login. It isn't bad, about 20 seconds. After I am logged in, the lag is much, much less, and only when going to the home page.

It isn't an issue, just FYI.

[Susan ✅]

Earlier today the forum experienced a period of slow page loads and intermittent timeouts. The cause was a surge of unwanted automated traffic targeting the site — the kind of activity our defenses are designed to absorb, but the volume this afternoon pushed our servers harder than usual for a stretch of time.

Our systems automatically detected the pattern and our team was on it throughout the event. Site performance has since returned to normal, and the site is running smoothly again.

No user data has been accessed or compromised. What the attackers were after is the same thing any visitor to the site is able to see, our public-facing posts.

Users email addresses, IP address information, and other personal account details are visible only to staff and have not been exposed — the only exception being members who have chosen to post that information publicly, against our long-standing  advice against doing so.

You don't need to take any action. If you noticed pages loading slowly or got an error and tried again later, you saw the system working as intended. Simply try again later.

We certainly appreciate your patience while we worked through it, and we're continuing to refine our protections so events like this have even less visible impact in the future.

Your very weary Site Administrator,
— Susan💜

[Susan ✅]

Thank you, Susan!

I still get a bit of lag when I first land on Susan's and again during login. It isn't bad, about 20 seconds. After I am logged in, the lag is much, much less, and only when going to the home page.

It isn't an issue, just FYI.

That was fixed, and an announcement was posted earlier this afternoon.