[HN Gopher] Rackspace Cloud Office suffers security breach
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       Rackspace Cloud Office suffers security breach
        
       Author : miles
       Score  : 72 points
       Date   : 2022-12-04 08:54 UTC (14 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (doublepulsar.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (doublepulsar.com)
        
       | voxadam wrote:
       | Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33839941
        
       | pooper wrote:
       | Please change this title. The vendor did not suffer. It is their
       | customers who suffered.
       | 
       | The vendor likely benefited due to all the extra profits from
       | underinvestment in their security.
        
         | ec109685 wrote:
         | The word suffers can mean experienced in a negative way.
        
           | nerdponx wrote:
           | Connoting that negative effects occurred for the sufferer.
           | The assertion here is that this connotation is inappropriate
           | because the sufferer in this case _benefited_ in the long
           | term.
        
         | paco3346 wrote:
         | Slightly different reason to change the title: I first read it
         | as though the physical office was breached.
        
         | alt227 wrote:
         | I spoke to a senior Rackspace engineer about a year ago. He
         | said that rackspace were looking to leave hosted exchange
         | market and push all of their customers to Microsoft O365 ASAP.
         | 
         | Looks like this outage will have helped them out a lot with
         | that challenge.
        
       | Neil44 wrote:
       | They were bought out a few years back, unrelated I'm sure...
        
         | skwashd wrote:
         | Rackspace were bought by private equity 6 years ago[0], and
         | then IPOed again a couple of years ago[1] at 21USD a share. On
         | Friday they were down 9c to $4.85.
         | 
         | [0] https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/26/rackspace-to-go-private-
         | af...
         | 
         | [1] https://www.rackspace.com/newsroom/rackspace-technology-
         | anno...
        
           | rjzzleep wrote:
           | Thanks for sharing. I was about to ask what happened to
           | Rackspace. I distantly remember 2012ish or early to be when
           | Rackspace was quite famous and I thought they were just an
           | amazing company for some reason.
        
             | quags wrote:
             | Rackspace is a dinosaur and their main problems have really
             | come from failure to adapt to the changing times - but for
             | them it has been a hard pivot. Back in the early 00s
             | rackspace was know for excellent service and support which
             | you paid a premium for this. They began to get under cut
             | first by the unmanaged server space where you could get a
             | 99 server for their 500+ / month. When the price is so
             | different it is hard to pivot because execs are looking
             | only at the bottom line. Then vps -> cloud came further
             | undercutting them and the cloud services that are mostly
             | self serve took off. Now they are still left with fanatical
             | support as their tag line , higher cost , but no longer
             | investing in this fanatical support. This becomes just a
             | business case of you can't have your cake and eat it too.
        
             | leesalminen wrote:
             | They were great around those years. I launched a SaaS
             | product on Rackspace's cloud in 2013.
             | 
             | The support was top-notch. I could call a phone number and
             | within minutes be on with the engineer who could actually
             | fix an issue.
             | 
             | That changed around 2016 and support went downhill. Then
             | the cloud product started to fall. When we engaged
             | Rackspace, they suggested we migrate to AWS. So, we did.
             | 
             | Haven't looked back.
        
               | Blackthorn wrote:
               | Just private equity things.
        
         | pirate787 wrote:
         | I moved my company off of Rackspace last year. Absolutely
         | terrible experience. The entire cloud operation felt like
         | "brand harvesting" with the sole purpose of keeping clients
         | locked in to the service. Lots of dark patterns and phone calls
         | required to shut down individual servers. Rackspace is a dead
         | man walking.
        
           | gryf wrote:
           | Yeah this. Their managed services were absolute dog shit. It
           | required me emailing a filled in word document template to
           | someone to get a firewall change done and then they would
           | fuck it up. Eventually I'd get whichever engineer they had on
           | the phone and talk them through how to do it. One firewall
           | change used to take me at least 3-4 days to get through.
           | 
           | Now using AWS WAF which admittedly costs more but not in wall
           | clock time!
        
             | verelo wrote:
             | I know a bunch of people that moved from a certain Georgia
             | based ISP to Rackspace, that should tell you everything you
             | need to know.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | x13 wrote:
       | As someone impacted by this, what alternatives do you suggest?
       | I'm all ears.. and a hostage of declining service and support.
       | TIA
        
         | bombcar wrote:
         | If you're using exchange online I see no reason to NOT go with
         | Microsoft directly.
         | 
         | At least then when it shits the bed everyone else will be
         | smothered, also.
        
       | johngalt wrote:
       | To anyone impacted by this. Here are a few things you might want
       | to check, other than the obvious user mailbox migration.
       | 
       | 0. Set your MX record TTLs as low as possible. Even if you aren't
       | ready to change over yet, it will lower propagation delay when
       | you are ready to cut over.
       | 
       | 1. Lower your DMARC record TTL, and consider changing it to
       | report only (p=none). If you keep it strict (P=reject), be sure
       | to check your reports for rejections after any changes.
       | 
       | 2. Aliases in rackspace aren't in the mailbox list export. This
       | isn't just Bill instead of William, but also info@domain.com or
       | helpdesk@domain.com etc...
       | 
       | 3. Allow lists/block lists can be exported from rackspace, and
       | imported in Microsoft but consider starting over from zero if you
       | can. Allow lists are risky.
       | 
       | 4. If you are using any advanced email threat protection tools
       | such as Barracuda or Mimecast, they can queue email for re-
       | delivery once the new MX is up.
       | 
       | My email is in my profile if anyone has specific questions.
        
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       (page generated 2022-12-04 23:01 UTC)