Realtor.com, topproducer.com and other Move sites back up after cyberattack

Move Inc. websites realtor.com, TopProducer.com and move.com are back up today after two days of disruption following a “distributed denial of service” cyberattack, although they may be available intermittently as they are moved to more protected network architecture, the company said.

Realtor.com’s mobile app is also available and Move’s “Find” search tool is functioning again, but like the rest of Move’s services, they may see some “down time,” said Move spokeswoman Mary Fallon.

“First, we wanted to get the most important sites back up like Top Producer and realtor.com. The next step over the weekend will be to strengthen protections against DDoS attacks further,” Fallon said.

She said users can expect that Move’s sites and services will be “fairly stable” today and will become more and more stable over the weekend.

“Our people are working around the clock to improve the stability,” Fallon added. She declined to project when the sites and services would be up consistently, but said, “Normally, these sorts of things take several days.”

Move said it received a ransom demand in conjunction with the attack, which it did not respond to. Fallon said the FBI is working to determine the attack’s origin.

In distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, individuals or automated programs called “botnets” assault a website with “zombie traffic,” preventing legitimate users from accessing the site.

DDoS attacks are measured in gigabytes per second. Move’s attack came in at about 30 GB per second, which puts it in the 20 to 50 GB per second range that other technology companies have experienced in recent months, Fallon said.

In an open letter published by Inman News, Move CEO Steve Berkowitz noted that Move, like other technology companies, has defended itself from DDoS attacks in past, but the scale of this week’s attack was large enough to impact the company’s network service providers.

DDoS attacks on Internet-based businesses and associated ransom demands are becoming more common, Berkowitz said.

A scan conducted by Arbor Networks for Inman News showed that a number of Move sites were not affected by the attack, including Doorsteps.com, Moving.com, HomeInsight.com, SeniorHousingNet.com, HomeFair.com, Relocation.com, ListHub.com and TigerLead.com.