Internet Telephony provider VoIP.ms has been the subject of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack for several days. The attack has knocked most of their services offline, including phone, SMS, and their management portal.
The company has been posting updates on Twitter (@voipms). The grief and pain this incident is inflicting on the company, its customers, and their customers, are palpable and heartbreaking. There has been no mention of a ransom demand, but that seems likely, given the attacks a couple weeks ago on UK VoIP providers (link, link).
Some have requested help getting forwarding set up, and VoIP.ms is responding to Twitter Direct Messages (DMs), but it’s unclear whether forwarding will work if the DDoS is preventing calls from reaching their infrastructure.
Unfortunately, there is no way to know how long this will go on. What options do you have?
1. Sign up for service with another provider and hook it up tor your PBX. This should immediately let you make outbound calls. I already had a Telnyx account configured, so outbound calls were not an issue.
2. Buy a phone number from the new provider. Look for a number in the same rate center as your current phone number (search by area code, then check the rate centers of the numbers offered). You can usually buy a number and have it provisioned and ready to connect to your PBX in a matter of minutes. Now you are ready for inbound calls on that temporary number.
3. Send VoIP.ms a DM on Twitter asking them to forward your number to the new, temporary number. Include your VoIP.ms account number (the main SIP account number, I think) in the request.
4. In case forwarding doesn’t work, let your customers know about the temporary number: post it on your web site and social media feeds. Consider an email blast.
5. If you are concerned that this outage will not be resolved quickly, the only permanent solution is to port your numbers away from VoIP.ms. You can do this by submitting a request to the new provider. I found that my primary number, though hosted by VoIP.ms, is owned by Bandwidth.com. I was able to submit a “FastPort” request for that number to Telnyx, which means that the port does not require manual approval. I submitted the request on Friday; within a couple hours, I had confirmation that the port would complete the following Wednesday.
Update September 20, 2021: Telnyx was able to move the port up two days to today, Monday. Port is now complete. My toll-free number does not have the FastPort option, so I’m still waiting on the losing entity to approve the port.
Update September 21, 2021: toll-free port will complete Thursday, September 23.
If you don’t have another provider already, I’ve had pretty good luck with Telnyx. (That referral link gives you a $10 credit if you sign up using your business email. 3/10/2023 Seems Telynx has ended their referral program, so this now just links to their main site.)
It’s extremely frustrating that cyber criminals choose to disrupt honest businesses for the sake of illicit gain. I sincerely hope that VoIP.ms is able to resolve this issue soon and that they come out of it a stronger company. In the meantime, these tips should give you a way to make and receive calls.