back to article 3... 2...1... and 123-Reg hit by DDoSers. Again

Just days into the new year, and poor old 123-Reg is already experiencing problems, this time in the form of a DDoS attack - something it is no stranger to. Customers have been in touch with El Reg to report their websites and email services have been down as a consequence of the attack. The outfit tweeted just over an hour …

  1. Deckmunki

    Tin foil hat thought...

    If I was the unscrupulous owner of a DDoS-protection service, I might be inclined to arrange a couple of high-level DDoS attacks just to drive a bit more business my way.

    1. Hans 1
      Happy

      Re: Tin foil twat thought...

      >If I was the unscrupulous owner of a DDoS-protection service, I might be inclined to arrange a couple of high-level DDoS attacks just to drive a bit more business my way.

      No need, the IoT twat dev's have done you a favor, by selling security sieves ... on a massive scale, so easy to crack that it is almost a joke.

  2. djstardust

    Why oh why

    Is anyone still with these muppets?

    Once bitten twice shy and all that .......

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Why oh why

      Who is best to use for a couple of domain names? Need any easy web interface to create DNS records, that's all. In fairness I had no problems.

      1. Colin Bull 1
        Thumb Up

        Re: Why oh why

        I have been with Zen for a couple of years. No issues.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Why oh why

          Cheers I'm already a subscriber for broadband. Will look into it but I have my domains registered at 123 until 2020 or something.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Why oh why

            Renewing the domain is less of an issue than having problems either with the running of the domain, or being able to update it should you need to. Moving the domain today will keep it's renewal date of 2020, but not leave your domain name or DNS at 123reg's mercy. Whoever you move it to should just ask for 1 year's fees, and in doing so, extend your domain's registration to 2021.

            FWIW I'm using UK2 for my domains lately.

            1. Kiwi
              Pirate

              Re: Why oh why

              FWIW I'm using UK2 for my domains lately.

              I've had to fire off a missive to abuse@uk2group.com due to a hell of a lot of naughty traffic coming from one of their IP's today. Attacked started about midnight NZ time and stopped about 5am.

              That said, probably more noticeable because I'd turned denyhosts off briefly and forgotten to turn it on. Denyhosts would've kicked the bugger permanently after a few failed attempts.. Has been some 6 hours since I sent the email (with log entries) and no response thus far, not even an acknowledgement.

              (Is this the "UK2" you refer to? AKA "Midphase"?)

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Why oh why

            Will look into it but I have my domains registered at 123 until 2020 or something.

            Move now. I've just done a bunch of migrations from 123-reg to Gandi. The .uk domains transferred for free, and kept the same expiration date. The .com domains cost £10 each to move, but were also valid for the same expiration date (or for one year, if the domain was due to expire within a year)

            Gandi seem very clueful and reliable, and have a clue when it comes to security (e.g. you can set up 2FA for your account, which you can't with 123-reg).

            The only downside I can see is that if you use Gandi to administer your zones, you can only use their nameservers and not add your own secondaries.

            Hoewver you can instead run your own primary (e.g. within a permanently-up VM that you control), you can use Gandi as a secondary.

            Another option to look at is Godaddy Premium DNS, which is ridiculously cheap *and* lets you add external secondaries.

      2. Fonant

        Domain Registration

        Mythic Beasts are worth a look: UK-based, have plenty of Clue, and they also support open source projects.

        1. IglooDude
          Coat

          Re: Domain Registration

          Well, that sounds so good that it's practically mythical!

          Oh, right.

        2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Domain Registration

          "they also support open source projects."

          And the Pi.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Why oh why

        In all fairness you didn't notice you had a problem. DNS is cached so unless your cache expired you wouldn't have seen it but others without a cached entry would not have been able to reach your site as their dns service was down for around an hour.

    2. Shez

      Re: Why oh why

      yeah, the domains aren't really used so it's just cheap parking for me.

  3. Davegoody

    Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the Right....

    I was a customer of these clowns for a good few years, and having lost my email and webserver on numerous occasions (not related to DDOS, just pure incompetence), I finally left them, When I left they contacted me and offered me a free year's service to stay. Why would I stay, when that year (though free at what real cost) would just be misery after misery. I feel sorry for the people I referred to these jokers over the years.

    They can't directly be blamed for being the targets of DDOS attacks, but they don't seem to have any preparation for this, nor any remediation policy in place. Their customer service is worse than useless, and I am genuinely amazed that they still exist in any capacity in 2017.

  4. Pen-y-gors

    Mistaken identity?

    Are we sure it wasn't a not-very-bright GPU hacker who wanted to take down ElReg instead?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Mistaken identity?

      ...or Apple. Or the Thai royal family. Or....

      Not bright and has a grudge against El Reg is a looooong list.

  5. andy 103

    Your card details have expired? Good

    Against my better judgment I registered a domain name through them about 6 months ago. About 8 - 9 years ago I'd have various horrible experiences with them but thought, surely - SURELY - they must have got their act together. The order process was horrible, and their own website looks like it was designed by a blind monkey.

    So I registered the domain (which is "parked" as I haven't finished the web application for it yet) and for the last few months have been bombarded with emails about my card expiring at the end of the year and that I should update the details so they can auto-renew my services. Erm, when I ordered the domain, I chose to have it for a period of 1 year and paid for it in full. I have no intention of auto-renewing it, as I may indeed never use it (subject to what happens to the application). Of course they'll just pass this off as them being "helpful" but they just seem as annoying/bad as they were nearly a decade ago. Maybe a good sign I should never purchase anything through them again.

  6. Dwarf

    Is it really that difficult to sign up for a DDoS protection service. (*)

    Yes, it costs a bit of money, but it will cost less than being on the front page of the press every week when your services are unavailable

    (*) if you already did, then its time to change to one that works.

  7. Dabooka

    I'm with 123reg

    My domains are set to expire in the next week or so and think I need to move. Any ideas where to, and is it easy?*

    *You may notice I'm new to this. Sites are social and have no value or commercial function

    1. Alan J. Wylie

      Re: I'm with 123reg

      I can recommend http://www.gandi.net/

      Memo to self. Must move my 123-reg domains over.

      1. 's water music

        Re: I'm with 123reg

        I renewed for several years last time around and assumed that meant I was locked in but I see that transfers are EUR0* on Gandi. Does that mean that they just take the hit of giving you free service for the balance of your reg period in expectation of renewals and to make the market fluid, Is that how all registrars work? I agree with Wolfetone below. I only use 123-reg for registration and mail/web forwarding and have never knowingly been affected by their crapness

        *EUR12 for my .org I notice

        1. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

          Re: I'm with 123reg

          Does that mean that they just take the hit of giving you free service for the balance of your reg period in expectation of renewals and to make the market fluid

          That's about it. The actual cost (in between renewals) of being the registrar for a domain are exceedingly low - a big chunk of what you pay goes towards the administration of the actual registration/renewal process and fees paid to the registry.

          There's a bit of swings and roundabouts too - some transfers in will give you domains you didn't get paid for initially, while transfers out will leave you not being registrar for a domain you did get paid for.

          And of course, most of the names already mentioned will be hoping that you are transferring the domain to them to make it easier to use their DNS/mail/web hosting/whatever services for which you'll have to pay them.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I'm with 123reg

          I renewed for several years last time around and assumed that meant I was locked in

          Nope. When you transfer to another registrar you pay the fee (which is similar to a yearly renewal fee, often a bit cheaper because bait) and you get a year added on until the domain expires. So if your domain expires in Dec 2018, after transferring it'll be Dec 2019. Best to check because mistakes can be made, but that's the way it usually happens.

          1. Kiwi

            Re: I'm with 123reg

            Nope. When you transfer to another registrar you pay the fee (which is similar to a yearly renewal fee, often a bit cheaper because bait) and you get a year added on until the domain expires.

            Not with the group I normally use (1stdomains.co.nz), at least not when I last transferred someone to them, which was a year or so back. You only pay when you register or renew, and if you transfer an existing domain to them you don't have to pay until renewal (or if you want to use some of their other services). Of course, they could've changed that since then, and of course this may be fairly unique to them.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: I'm with 123reg

              @Kiwi

              Might be their sales angle. I think it's unusual.

        3. the hatter

          Re: I'm with 123reg

          > Does that mean that they just take the hit of giving you free service for the balance of your reg period

          Yes, the cost of hosting some DNS records and doing a bit of email forwarding is vanishingly small, and even smaller when you're already doing the same for eleventybillion other domains anyhow. Better they have larger customer numbers, and that your laziness will net them some loose change, next year rather than their competitor.

      2. Chronos

        Re: I'm with 123reg

        Mythic Beasts gets my vote for domain registration. Highly clueful folks.

        1. Chris King

          Re: I'm with 123reg

          +1 for Mythic Beasts - but some folks consider them to be "too expensive". Usually the same people moaning that their 99p-a-year or ad-supported services are on the blink YET again.

    2. wolfetone Silver badge

      Re: I'm with 123reg

      I moved mine to Namescheap. But from what I gather these issues are concerned with people hosting their sites and emails with 123-Reg, not actually registering domains with them.

      But you're going to get a million and one replies to this, all with different answers. For what it's worth, and it's my opinion*, don't go with:

      - Fasthosts

      - GoDaddy

      - Heart Internet

      - Daily

      Everything else is fair game.

      *for the benefit of people who get offended easily.

    3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: I'm with 123reg

      "I need to move"

      As a general practice, when changing hosting, whatever you choose, check with whois and Companies House first. Some companies trade multiple names so you might be jumping from the frying pan to the frying pan.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I'm with 123reg

        Another +1 for Namecheap and -1 for GoDaddy

        Also, it's worth keeping domains and hosting separate...you're WAY more likely to have problems with hosting, and if your domains are elsewhere you can move hosts in more-or-less as long as it takes you to down/upload the files. If the hosts have your domains too, they have you by the knackers.

        My domains are set to expire in the next week or so and think I need to move.

        You might not be able to if it's too close to renewal time.

    4. Dabooka
      Pint

      Re: I'm with 123reg

      Thanks for all the answers chaps, plenty to keep me going.

  8. wolfetone Silver badge
    Coat

    Fool me once, shame on you.

    Fool me twice, shame on me.

    Fool me thrice, I am a 123-Reg customer who doesn't give a damn about my business or emails.

  9. MrKrotos

    I have been using Namecheap for about 2 years now with zero issues. I am slowly moving all my domains off 123 to namecheap :)

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Another option

    I've been very happy with Hover (run by Tucows).

    1. Kiwi
      WTF?

      Re: Another option

      (run by Tucows).

      Wow, they're still going? I'd forgotten about them since my Windows days. IIRC they used to.. er.. Too far back but I think they used to have some good tools or other downloads or something? Must pay them a visit for old times sake..

      (Hopefully they're not another malware-ridden download.com clone these days...)

      [edit couple of mins later..] Ok, their software (especially the Linux stuff) needs some serious updates. 2002 versions of software? (eg Bluefish 0.11 vs Aptitude's version 2.2.7-2! ]

  11. msage

    DNS /= Registrar

    I used to use 123 for DNS, but now simply use them as a registrar for domains, they are still pretty cheap. Then I either use Azure DNS or Amazon Route 53 for the name servers. Yes, Azure / Amazon cost a bit, but compared to the hassle of 123 it is well worth it.

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