IBM TechXchange Group

Refer to this post to get the latest status for the IBM Community web site. Protecting our community from bad actors is a top priority for us. We work in the background every day to ensure we provide a safe and welcoming space for our customers, partners, IBMers, and all other members. Following an incident like this, we will review our processes and decide how we can further improve our safeguards.

If you or your coworkers suspect you are the victim of inappropriate activity, please notify us immediately in the Community Front Porch forum.

August 22, 2022

The IBM Community site experienced a spam attack at approximately 4:20AM Eastern time. The attacker distributed spurious messages into the internal Community mail folders of some members of the Community site. As part of the mitigation and recovery process, the Community team took these measures:

• The account of the user originating the spam messages was deactivated
• Additional accounts sending the same spam messages were deactivated
• All recipients (3,569 in total) of the spam messages were identified
• Spam messages were removed from the inboxes of the affected users
• While we continue our investigation, we have temporarily suspended member ability to send internal Community emails

August 24, 2022

• While the origin of the spam messages is being investigated, the community email system has been temporarily paused. This includes event notifications, daily digests etc.

September 6, 2022

• As of 12 PM ET today, the IBM Community email functionality has been restored.
• At this time the ability to direct message a community member remains turned off until further notice.