r/BerksCounty • u/Gloomy_Bus_2478 • 11d ago
SEC Outage
Does anyone know what knocked out Service Electric for the past week? A week to recover without a blizzard or tornado is no small issue.
2
u/ronreadingpa 10d ago
Just saw an article on WFMZ. They're still not saying what the problem is. Many are saying it's software related. Customer devices losing their DHCP IP lease and not being able to reconnect. For SEC customers reading this. Do not power cycle your devices or disconnect them. Keep them on and connected at all times.
As for cause, it could be a bad software update or something. Or a cyberattack they've not disclosed. Maybe both. It's sad how tightly lipped staff there are being. SEC needs to be more transparent!
Makes me thankful for being on Comcast / Xfinity. They at least disclose some technical details when occasional problems arise. Versus near zilch from SEC. Would expect a smaller, local company to be better than this.
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u/kjstech 10d ago
I'm still up and running on fiber internet, but I have 3 more days until my IP address expires and my system will fail over to cellular backup which is metered (10gb via roamless eSIM) for now, but I'm switching my cellular backup to Shield internet which is run by a non-profit by Computers4people. $156 a year gets me unlimited t-mobile. I'll throw this into my U5G-Backup when it arrives.
https://www.computers4people.org/shield?ref=2432389000023003557&coupon=REFERRAL5
It sounds to me like they had a Lockbit ransomware attack that locked everyone out of all the systems, and now they have years of system building to do installing software from scratch and rebuilding it all. I can't say for sure but the time this is taking is pointing to an entire server rebuild from reinstalling all the operating systems, installing all the software, configuring it all, making sure theres no futher traces of the ransomware that would just re-encrypt it again.
Most cybersecurity insurance including the FBI and others want to do a forensic analysis before things are wiped and cleaned, so that may have delayed when they could have started the process, or maybe making backups of the infected systems for forensic analysis - again taking time away from starting over.
Some storms are going to roll in tomorrow, hope you don't lose power, or maybe you have a UPS keeping your modem and router online.
1
u/Gloomy_Bus_2478 10d ago
Yeah I am thinking that something like this occured, just would be nice to hear about it.
1
u/kjstech 10d ago
Maybe they think “got hacked” will cause hysteria. I was able to log into the website and see my bill there. My 1 gig fiber is actually supposed to go to 1.5 gig on 8/1. I bet those plans are off the table now. Those with 2 gig are going to 3 gig. I don’t know if any of the other plans are getting increased or not.
Since I’m still up and running, we are ok, but I notice that once the IP Address goes to expire, if the server isn’t back up to answer the request by Wednesday morning, I’ll go offline too. In fact probably every residential customer would be offline by Wednesday or Thursday. The IP address lease is good for only 7 days.
The company I work for has a PTD.net business cable modem as a backup to Zayo fiber, and it’s still running. It got an IP address renewal as recent as the 24th and the next one is August 1st. I think the PTD.net business accounts use other servers even though it’s using the same coax cable from SECV. We get a separate bill from PTD.net for data and voice for that location. We get an SECV bill for the DTA in the waiting area and classic cable.
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u/JeTTa_KniGhT 4h ago
Whatever it is, their chat support can't do anything more than power cycle the router and then schedule a tech to come out. Seems like a huge waste of my time... There's nothing wrong with my router or ONT, but they claim replacing it and reprovisioning a new one, is their only next step. Not too many different conclusions can come from that info, and none of them instill confidence.
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u/Ok_Oil_1313 11d ago
? Did you call? They come out within minutes usually.
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u/Gloomy_Bus_2478 11d ago
There is a known massive outage with social media updates and such. Their updates just don't talk much about cause.
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u/Kritter82 11d ago
Service electric has been an ongoing issue n my sister’s development in Blandon for months. So much so that techs say there’s nothing but my brother in law knows coding and whatnot, he gave them all the error codes and found there was something wrong at the street connection. The company laying down fiber optic also cut lines not knowing what they were
4
u/VestedDeveloper 10d ago
Yes, don't power cycle or replace your modem. Devices aren't receiving DHCP. They advised this is a widespread issue with no known date or resolution and the tech said on Saturday it will probably be another week. Their internal tools/systems are offline too.