Sector 5 Servers Attacked

Trackers of Sector 5,

I know you may be tired of hearing of server and computer issues but we have more to report. Our servers for the Regional Tracking Center here in Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada have been under attack most of the day.

The attack hit during the chat with Santa on Saturday. It immediately knocked us offline and delayed reporting through-out the sector for about an hour. We had to switch to emergency satellite Internet to stay in contact with North Pole Flight Command.

Those back-up protocols made it so we could stay in business but it showcases what a frail existence it is for us. It also shows how we depend on Flight Command and other sectors in an emergency.

I don’t know entirely how it works but when we were able to report our issues to North Pole Flight Command they immediately routed incoming data from our sector through Sectors 2 and 4 – thus ensuring the ongoing stream of information was uninterrupted.

Also, as a precaution, we contacted the SS Tannenbaum, who relayed critical information on our behalf to North Pole Flight Command and set up an emergency “phone bridge” between us. They talked us through the whole situation.

Tonight, some 14 hours after this event started, we have finally started to see a decrease in server traffic and are starting to restore normal operations.

Please understand these technical difficulties are not a result of misconfiguration or mistakes on the part of our technical teams. These are attacks that appear to be coming out of China and Iran. North Pole Security has been working around the clock to determine who is doing it and why.

With Santa’s instructions in hand, I want you to know that right now we could use some fresh information specifically from Sector 5:

1.  Please stay on top of weather. It appears the Canadian and US West regions will be dry over the next week, except for coastal areas. But we are not confident of East Coast weather patterns. Special note to Elf Weather Tracking: Elf Seymour Snow says he has no way to contact you. But as our weather analyst in Sector 5 if you could take it upon yourself to update via a weather report what you are hearing about the US and Canada East Coast regions at least once a day, that would be helpful right now.
2. I’m working on official check-in instructions for later this week with Flight Command. We do not want to begin those too early. Because Christmas Eve is on a Sunday this year we know this means a lot of elves have family commitments and will be tracking by mobile device. Just so you know, I’ve asked for early check-in, but I’m getting some resistance on that. I’ll keep you updated on what is decided.
3.  Someone asked about the status of the roof and chimney inspections. From what we can tell of reporting the past couple of months, we have a roughly 61% completion rate. That’s actually an improvement. That means 6 of 10 homes have updated information about roofs or chimneys. Please, if you can add any new roof or chimney information for those that have NOT been reported this year, please try to get them in as soon as possible. There is no need to update roof or chimney situations that you have already reported on this year.

Thank you all for your good work. I’ll do my best to keep you posted. If you have questions please post them in the comments below.

About this Elf: Elf Pinky

Elf Pinky was recruited from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1992 and has since served as an instructor in sleigh flight theory at the North Pole Institute of Aviation. She worked very hard to earn her elf credentials, working a second shift first as a tool repair technician in Santa’s workshop and then as an engineer in the Wrapping Department designing wrapping machines. Pinky in recent years was a recruiter and trainer of sleigh test pilots and flies under the call sign Barracuda. Last year she served as a Flight Operations Director and demonstrated outstanding judgment and maturity in her duties supervising more than 400 elves, pilots, reindeer handlers and sleigh freighters.