You may have noticed that the BTQ website and forum were unavailable for a period of time this afternoon (between approximately 1pm and 2pm). Given this was quite a large unplanned outage, I wanted to provide you all with some details.
BTQ uses Binary Lane to host our website and forum. At 1:19pm, Binary Lane confirmed they were experiencing a major issue and were investigating.
At 4:00pm, they advised that the problem was caused by a large‑scale attack on their network. This attack was big enough that their main internet provider had to temporarily block Binary Lane to protect the rest of their network. Each time they were reconnected, the attack started again.
To keep services online, Binary Lane has temporarily switched to a backup provider. This means the site is reachable, but some people may notice slower speeds.
Importantly, Binary Lane has confirmed that no customer data is at risk. This was a network attack, not a break‑in.
Binary Lane met with their main provider at 4:00pm to work out a longer‑term fix, and they are also bringing in extra capacity from another Australian carrier to stabilise things. They will provide another update once that plan is in place.
I will keep this post updated with any further information, should there be a need.
Monitoring - Update — services generally restored, ongoing monitoring
We are continuing to mitigate what remains the largest DDoS attack we have observed. Our primary upstream has implemented local policies that are materially reducing the impact,
and we’ve engaged several additional partners to absorb traffic — some have been unable to handle the volume, but others are now contributing capacity successfully. Services are
now generally available, and we will continue close monitoring over the next 12 hours.
We’ll post a further update if the picture changes materially, or once the monitoring window is complete. Thank you for your patience through today.
May 15, 2026 - 19:12 AEST
Update - We’ve now met with our primary upstream and agreed a plan to return stability to the network, and that plan is being implemented now. In parallel, over the past hour we’ve
continued to work with additional providers to bring online further capacity for ongoing DDoS mitigation.
We will post the next update at 6:30 PM AEST. Thank you for your continued patience.
May 15, 2026 - 17:23 AEST
Identified - BinaryLane is responding to a large-scale denial-of-service attack targeting our entire autonomous system. The attack has been significant enough to affect our primary upstream
provider, who has had to drop our ports several times to protect their wider network — most recently because the attack resumed each time we were re-added. We are currently
announcing traffic via our secondary upstream, which is keeping the platform reachable but with reduced throughput and higher latency for traffic outside Sydney, where the
secondary provider’s footprint is concentrated.
We have a meeting at 4:00 PM AEST with our primary upstream to agree a sustainable path forward, and in parallel we are working with another Australian carrier (with whom we have
direct connectivity in all our datacentres) to bring additional capacity online for mitigation. Customer data is not at risk — this is a network-level attack, not an intrusion.
We’ll post a further update immediately after the 4:00 PM meeting. Thank you for your patience.
May 15, 2026 - 16:00 AEST
Investigating - We are currently investigating this issue.
May 15, 2026 - 13:19 AEST