My emails stopped working – your system is blocking me – this is so annoying – I am a paying customer

Background

From time to time email stops working out of the blue. This is especially pronounced if you have many accounts and all of them stops working at once. Customers want insight why this is happening and here is where we explain why.

What is brute force?

Brute force is when a system or user tries to repeatedly access another system using random or incorrect usernames and / or passwords.

If you have any devices on your network, e.g. a PC, a Mac, a phone, another phone, a tablet, etc. each and every one of them who tries to access another system may generate a login event.

In the case where “something” has changes, the device might repeatedly try to connect to Vander Host’s network using the incorrect credentials. We have brute force protection on all our systems which detects repeated incorrect logins and blocks them. This is an essential part of network security but can be an inconvenience to a client.

Here are some scenarios why this might have happened to you:

1. You have an ADSL or fibre internet provider, and they, like most ISPs, use dynamic addressing. That means, even if we fix the problem by bypassing your blocked IP address, the problem wil recur. So, as with any good troubleshooting, root cause analysis needs to be performed. Every single accounts, even if there are 100, has to be checked. That means:
   • Does incoming work?
   • Does outgoing work?
   • Yep, it’s a lot of checking but nobody ever said root cause analysis isn’t thorough
2. A new device was added to your network with an incorrect password or username. Yep, it’s very easy to mistype things on a phone with small fingers.
3. There was an existing device on the network, and through hook or  crook, you managed to change the password. Remember that prompt for password that you didn’t quite understand? Maybe when your internet had problems? Well that small problem has now turned into a big problem.
4. Somebody tried to log in somewhere to use, and repeatedly put in the wrong credentials.
5. Someone tried to set up an outgoing email server, but chose the wrong security.

In a nutshell, we use brute force protection and if your stuff isn’t set up right or you made a mistake you will get blocked.

If you think you are blocked, and sure sign is everything is offline, then contact us to get unblocked.