As you may have heard, multiple hardware vulnerabilities have been discovered in an array of processors made by different manufacturers called Meltdown and Spectre. These vulnerabilities affect almost every device currently utilized by both the general public, business, government, and industrial sectors. Mean Servers utilizes Intel processors exclusively for all server lines, products, and hypervisors. As such, all services, as with the services with all other cloud providers, are affected by these vulnerabilities.

Since these vulnerabilities first came to light, we at Mean Servers have been working to ensure all critical systems are patched and up-to-date. In the past 48 hours, we have rolled out these patches to fix the vulnerabilities caused by Meltdown and Spectre to all hypervisors, shared hosting, and critical infrastructure machines. We have also patched clients machines that are on a managed service plan.

These patches unfortunately require us to reboot all hypervisors and other critical infrastructure machines in order to patch the kernel fully. This will result in downtime for all clients in our Los Angeles and Denver facilities except for unmanaged dedicated server clients whom are responsible for patching their own systems. Those clients with our redundant anycast services will also be unaffected by the downtime as only one hypervisor will be taken offline at a time. 

Starting at midnight tonight (Denver time) January 6, 2018, Mean Servers will begin to reboot each individual hypervisor one at a time. We expect downtimes to last 15 to 30 minutes while we take down each hypervisor, apply the patches, and boot the machines back up. The expected time for all patches to be rolled out is 06:00 Denver time. We are unable to give an exact time for the downtime and due to the critical nature of these patches, we must take action as quickly as possible. We ask that you do not submit a request for support during this time as it will slow the process. We will keep an update of the progress under the Client Area's Network Status page: https://www.meanservers.com/billing/serverstatus.php

For clients that do not have a managed service with us, we highly recommend you patch your kernel and reboot your machine immediately. These vulnerabilities affect all operating systems and it is important that you secure your system as soon as possible. For clients that have an unmanaged service and require assistance patching their machines, Mean Servers is offering a $49 special where we will update all system packages on your operating system including applying any patches required to secure against Meltdown and Spectre. If you would like to take advantage of this special, please open a ticket with the billing department.

It is also highly recommend you ensure you have patched your personal devices and any device you may use for business that is not part of the Mean Servers network. Since a vast array of processors are affected, it is critical to ensure you have the latest software updates across all devices. Updates are now available for all major operating systems.

Additional information regarding Meltdown and Spectre can be found at the official website regarding the vulnerabilities, https://meltdownattack.com

Once again, we apologize for any inconvenience this urgent scheduled downtime may have caused. Should you have any questions regarding this, please contact us via ticket.

Viernes, Enero 5, 2018





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