Authorize.net Undergoing Distributed Denial Of Service (DDOS) Attacks

Martin Bolton 20/09/04

Authorize.net one of the large US based payment gateway providers, has many customers reporting intermittent service due to distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks.

Early reports of intermittent payment processing problems were reported as early as Wednesday September 15th and although service has been restored, the attacks were still in progress on the 20th. Many peoples first reaction was that Authorize.net had gone bust, but happily this is not the case.

Rumours abound about the reason for the attacks with some of the more widely reported being that a group in Russia is carrying out the attacks for extortion purposes.

A statement on the Authorize.net website on the 20th states "Authorize.Net continues to experience intermittent large scale distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, which have led to periodic disruptions for some Authorize.Net merchants. We are continuing to make progress in our efforts to abate the DDoS attacks and are doing everything we can maintain normal transaction processing services."

"Due to an excessively high number of calls resulting from this unexpected disruption of service, our Customer Support center may experience longer than average hold times. We apologize for any inconvenience you may be experiencing and appreciate your patience while we continue to fight these malicious DDoS attacks."

Hopefully this trouble will soon be cleared up, with minimal disruption to both Authorize.net and its clients.

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