IEDR Claim Website Will Be Restored Tomorrow

The IEDR’s main website has been in “maintenance mode” for the last two weeks with a simple message about a security incident being displayed.

As of this morning, however, it has been updated with slightly different text:

IE Domain Registry (IEDR) has restored services to all of its customers. Our corporate website, which is moving to another platform, was deemed a lower priority than our customer-facing applications. The website will be available by 26th October. We apologise for any inconvenience to the Internet community.

Background:-

As you may be aware, there was a security incident on Tuesday 9th October, involving two high profile .ie domains that has warranted further investigation and some precautionary actions on the part of the IEDR.

There was an unauthorised access to a Registrar’s account via IEDR’s systems which resulted in the change to the DNS nameserver records for the two .ie domains. The IEDR worked with the Registrar and the Registrant to ensure that the nameserver records were reset and corrected promptly. Simultaneously, the IEDR commenced an investigation and analysis, with the assistance of external security experts.

Based on the results of the investigation and the recommendation of security experts, the IEDR temporarily brought external web-based systems off-line in order to perform additional analysis. However, the Whois service* the IEDR’s API and Web based systems for Registrations are fully operational which means that Registrars accounting for over 98% of .ie domains are largely unaffected by this interruption. Public access to .ie websites or email is also unaffected.

Gardai have been notified and IEDR has requested that the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation (GBFI) conduct an investigation into this external attack on the .ie namespace. That investigation commenced on Wednesday 10th October.

The steps the IEDR is taking are to ensure the safety, security and resilience of the .ie domain. Please note that IEDR is in the process of moving the corporate website to another platform, so the corporate website www.iedr.ie will be available in due course.

The IEDR will continue to provide further updates on this web page as additional information becomes available

IEDR Team Thursday 25th October

* The .ie WHOIS service is available via published web-based WHOIS services at: http://networking.ringofsaturn.com/Tools/whois.php or http://centralops.net/co/(or via a google search for “online whois tool” or using your o/s whois command-line client e.g whois iedr.ie).

Direct IEDR Customers :- to access your online account please click on the following link “My Account”

Screenshot (click to enlarge):

At present both registrars and “direct customers” have access to a web console, though the IEDR’s main site with policy documents and other information, including web based whois is offline.

Based on the latest update it would appear as if the main IEDR site will be online again tomorrow, or sooner, as they are moving it to a different “platform”.

Related articles

• Google.ie Hijacked? (technology.ie)
• IEDR Take Website Offline Following High Profile Domain Hijacks (internetnews.me)
• IEDR Suffers Major Outage (internetnews.me)
• IEDR Lose Google.ie? (internetnews.me)
• IEDR Suffers Another Outage (internetnews.me)