Rackspace hosted Exchange is down due to ransomware.

[psydii]

They’ve been bringing customers back online by migrating them to exchange online/365…. But without their old mailboxes. They’ve been offline for three days at this point.

 

There is some chatter that Rackspace hadn’t patched their service since August.

 

 

How are your exchange servers doing?

[3s-gtech]

Eeep. Patched mine to CU23, and should have the November updates in from WSUS (will double check!)

 

Mine doesn’t host mailboxes, but as a hybrid it still needs to be secure.

[free780]

You probably need to update the exchange server in line with patch Tuesday.

 

Definitely enable the mitigation service.

 

Only expose http/https to trusted IPs.

 

Rack space have not handled this well.

[Michael]

I'm not sure why anyone would want hosted Exchange vs O365. An Exchange Online Plan 1 license costs £36+VAT per year, per user.

[3s-gtech]

You probably need to update the exchange server in line with patch Tuesday.

 

Definitely enable the mitigation service.

 

Only expose http/https to trusted IPs.

 

Rack space have not handled this well.

My Exchange was fully patched (KB5019758). I've removed external access to OWA and ECP now. Mitigation service was already on.

Edited December 7, 2022 by 3s-gtech

[Michael]

On closer inspection, what's even more odd is Rackspace are £1.59 more expensive than Microsoft's same offering - a 100GB mailbox (per month).

 

This really doesn't make any sense to me!

[free780]

Theres an idea that mail is more secure when not stored in Exchange Online. You can't place MFA on Exhcnage very easily.

Some orgs still only want on prem Exhcnage. Which is fine if you have a lot of staff to patch it and probably IPS and/or a WAF.

[msi_school]

Theres an idea that mail is more secure when not stored in Exchange Online. You can't place MFA on Exhcnage very easily.

Some orgs still only want on prem Exhcnage. Which is fine if you have a lot of staff to patch it and probably IPS and/or a WAF.

 

I can see an argument for on prem Exchange at very large or very security conscious organisations but that sector does not really intersect with Rackspaces customers.

[Michael]

I agree, if you want a local Exchange managed in house, managed by IT and behind a firewall - absolutely fine (but still time consuming), but the Rackspace Exchange hosting vs. Microsoft's Exchange online - even for a small business doesn't make any sense!

[MatthewL]

It doesn't make any sense now to have local Exchange instances, the time and maintenance for them is not worth the hassle, move it all to O365. Even if its a large orginisation O365 the way forward, issues like this just highlight it. More chance of this happening to small places, but to behonest any Exchange server is a risk.