RALEIGH
Update 4:50 p.m. Sept. 30: Bandwidth says its internet voice services are working again after last weekend’s cyber attack.
Raleigh technology company Bandwidth, which makes software for internet-based voice and text communication, is experiencing outages after it was hit by a cyber attack over the weekend, the company said Tuesday.
Bandwidth — along with several other voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP) providers, like the Canadian company Voip.ms — said a DDoS attack has caused intermittent disruptions to its service over the past three days.
A DDoS attack, or distributed denial-of-service, is a flood of fake requests and traffic to a company’s website or service. The requests can overwhelm a company, leading to normal users being unable to access its services, according to CompTIA, a nonprofit trade association for the information and technology profession.
On Wednesday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said it was aware of the cyber attack against Bandwidth.
“The FBI is aware of reports of a DDoS attack involving Bandwidth,” Shelley Lynch, a spokesperson for the FBI’s Charlotte Division, said in an email. “We are monitoring the situation and have been in contact with the company.”
Bandwidth is one of the country’s largest providers of VoIP technology, which helps companies connect phones and messaging to customers over the internet. The company provides key services that make phone calls possible on platforms like RingCentral, Google and Zoom. It also helps many 911 emergency services handle call traffic.
The attack, which began on Sept. 25, is causing some phone calls and messages to fail.
A status page on Bandwidth’s website showed partial outages for its inbound and outbound call services — though most of its services are operational again, including its 911 services.
“While we have mitigated much intended harm, we know some of you have been significantly impacted by this event. For that I am truly sorry,” Bandwidth CEO David Morken said in a statement. “You trust us with your mission-critical communications. There is nothing this team takes more seriously.
“We are working around the clock to support your teams and minimize the impact of this attack.”
Bandwidth declined to comment on the incident beyond Morken’s statement, and it is unclear how many customers have experienced outages.
Bandwidth is not the only VoIP company to be impacted by cyber attacks this month. Canada-based Voip.ms and England-based VoIP Unlimited also saw their call services disrupted by a DDoS attack, the tech publication ArsTechnica reported.
The perpetrators of the attack against Voip.ms demanded that the company pay 100 bitcoins, or around $4.2 million, to stop the DDoS attack, ArsTechnica reported.
Bandwidth is one of the fastest-growing companies in the Triangle.
The company — which had revenue of $343.1 million in 2020, up 47.5% from 2019 — has pledged to hire more than 1,000 employees in Raleigh in the coming years.
It is currently building a massive new headquarters at the corner of Edwards Mill and Reedy Creek roads.
This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate
This story was originally published September 28, 2021 3:45 PM.
