GoDaddy goes down, Anonymous claims responsibility
(CBS News) GoDaddy, the domain registrar and Web hosting company, is down, perhaps taking millions of websites down as a result.
"Status Alert: Hey, all. We're aware of the trouble people are having with our site. We're working on it," @GoDaddy tweeted Monday.
A quick call to the company's customer service line resulted in this voice message:
"If you are having a problem with your email, we are aware of the problem."
TechCrunch reports that GoDaddy email addresses are down, as well. The blog suggests customers concerned with that their site has been affected can check online status at Down For Everyone Or Just Me.
Twitter accounts claiming to be associated with the hacking group Anonymous claimed responsibility for the attack.
"Basically, every GoDaddy site on the planet just crashed," @TibitXimer tweeted.
"#TangoDown - godaddy.com," @AnonOpsLegion tweeted Monday, claiming that the Twitter account @AnonymousOwn3r was responsible for the breach. "TangoDown" is the term that Anonymous generally uses to signify that a website is down.
"By using / supporting Godaddy, you are supporting censorship of the Internet," @AnonOpsLegion tweeted again later.
GoDaddy was the target of protests after it was discovered that the company supported unpopular bills the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA).
GoDaddy did not immediately respond to CBS News' request for comment.
Update: Apparently the GoDaddy outage wasn't caused by Anonymous as a group, but by a single member going by the handle
AnonymousOwn3r.
Here's the TechCrunch report:
According to many customers, sites hosted by major web host and domain registrar GoDaddy are down. According to the official GoDaddy Twitter account the company is aware of the issue and is working to resolve it. Update: customers are complaining that GoDaddy hosted e-mail accounts are down as well, along with GoDaddy phone service and all sites using GoDaddy’s DNS service.
Update 2: Anonymous is claiming responsibility. A member of Anonymous known as AnonymousOwn3r is claiming responsibility, and makes it clear this is not an Anonymous collective action.
AnonymousOwn3r’s bio reads “Security leader of #Anonymous (~Official member~).” The individual claims to be from Brazil, and hasn’t issued a statement as to why GoDaddy was targeted.
Last year GoDaddy was pressured into opposing SOPA as customers transferred domains off the service.
WOW. Not just their clients, but their own site and corporate servers as well as their
phone lines? And yes, in most cases if the web servers are down, the email servers would be down as well.
This could be absolutely massive if it lasts more than an hour or two, and definitely highlights the risks of having so much of our civilization online these days.
Wow.
I can't stand GoDaddy myself, both as a progressive (their founder/CEO is a torture-loving wingnut who gets his kicks from killing elephants) as well as a website developer (the laundry list of complaints about both their user interface, their customer service and their shady business practices is legendary).
Having said that, this could be a HUGE disaster for, potentially, millions of small businesses.
I'll follow up as I learn more, but in the meantime, if your website (or just your domain name) is hosted by/registered through GoDaddy, I'd strongly recommend checking the status of it.