We're back: systems are fully online

Bidali is back in business. We began processing orders again midweek, and our systems are fully online and operational.

In my last post I explained what happened to us between October 16 and 22 and why we paused ordering. Thank you for your patience. I know how hard the outage was on you, and I'm sorry again for how long it lasted.

What we did while we were offline

We used the time to harden everything we could:

• We moved to Cloudflare for layer 7 (L7) blocking. Attacks on our applications are now blocked at the edge before they reach our systems.
• We audited our entire infrastructure. Every service, every codebase and every cluster component.
• We rolled out more than 200 pull requests. Each one was reviewed before it shipped.
• We helped some of our partners harden their own systems. We are only as strong as the network around us.
• We updated our mobile apps to change the account setup flow. It makes it much harder for botnets to mass-create accounts. This is a required update, so please install the latest version of the Bidali app from the App Store or Google Play.

The attacks have not stopped

We are still seeing sustained cyber attacks, and so is the entire gift card industry. Other companies have written about what they are seeing. Runa describes AI-driven payout fraud and a coordinated wave of attacks across the industry, and Giftbit has published an update on its own incident.

Because of this, some brands and denominations may be temporarily unavailable. I apologize for that. We are working with our suppliers to bring everything back as quickly and as safely as we can.

What we are seeing now

Since we reopened midweek, our mitigations and hardening have been working very well, even with hacking attempts continuing every day.

We are here to support everyone. That includes our customers, our partners and any company dealing with the same thing. If we can help you, reach out and we will do whatever we can.

For brands, gift card issuers and e-commerce platforms

If you issue gift cards, run a brand program or sell gift cards on an e-commerce platform, this week is a reminder of how much better the controls around gift cards need to be. Bidali Issuing is our secure issuance platform: digital gift cards issued to one customer and cryptographically verified when they are claimed, so stolen or copied codes stop working. If you would like to learn more, write to sales@bidali.com.

If you are having an issue

If anything is not working for you, please contact our support team at support@bidali.com or through our support center. We have tried to stay on top of support tickets, but we admittedly fell behind while we were focused on the incident. We are working hard to catch up, and I appreciate your patience.

Thank you for sticking with us.

Eric Kryski Co-founder and CEO, Bidali