A Message to Our Customers:
As you may know, on Sunday, February 3 around 3:00 AM CST, we were the victims of a ransomware attack. The impact on our internal systems managed to limit our access to processing and almost all web functionality. As our customers, you all felt the impact as you could not access our websites, nor could we process your samples.
Our IT staff and engineers have worked tirelessly, around the clock, for a week to restore the system and get things back to a production level. We have made great strides and believe as I write this today, Tuesday, February 12, that both Transnetyx® QuickOrder and Transnetyx ColonyTM sites are stable, and that all data is accurate, reliable, and able to be used for your purposes.
Additionally, the lab is operational and running 24 hours/7 days a week to process the backlog as quickly as possible. We will be processing the samples in the order in which they were received, as we feel that is most equitable to all of you. We know you rely on us for genotyping and we are doing all within our power to ensure the accuracy and timeliness that you have come to count on.
To help prevent an incident like this from occurring again, we have enhanced our security and implemented endpoint monitoring throughout our environment. We also are in the process of implementing and testing a more thorough disaster recovery plan and fully vetting the third-party vendors we rely upon for operational resiliency.
In addition to scanning all our systems, we have also added new protective programs and tools to them and have changed employee security on all devices.
This has been a difficult and trying time for us, but more importantly, this has inconvenienced you. With site functionality issues and the delay in your results, we regretfully acknowledge that our problems have become yours. We appreciate your patience and understanding and have been so encouraged by the emails we have received from so many of you.
We believe the last few steps we are taking to stabilize our systems for the long term can be done quickly and with as little downtime as possible. We will do our best to give you an early warning for any planned site outages.
A full letter of explanation will be sent once the formal review has been completed. However, in the interim, I wanted to keep you informed and say thank you for your patience and understanding. If you need anything at all, please let us know and we will do all we can.
Thank You.
Bob Bean
Timeline of Events
Scheduled Maintenance, Saturday Feb 16
Transnetyx sites will be down for scheduled maintenance on Saturday (February 16), for approximately one hour. Maintenance will start at 1:00 PM PST | 4:00 PM EST | 10:00 PM CET | Sun 08:00 AM AEDT. We will be using this time to improve our backup capabilities. We appreciate your patience and understanding.
Tuesday, February 12th – 1:33 PM CST
Our sites will be down for scheduled maintenance in the evening on Wednesday, February 13th for 4 to 6 hours. Please check below for your local time:
United States- Wednesday, February 13th - 8:00 PM Eastern Standard Time
- Wednesday, February 13th - 7:00 PM Central Standard Time
- Wednesday, February 13th - 5:00 PM Pacific Standard Time
- Thursday 14 February - 1:00 AM Central European Time
- Thursday 14 February - 12:00 PM Australian Eastern Daylight Time
- Thursday 14 February - 8:00 AM Australian Western Standard Time
Monday, February 11th – 12:50 AM CST
After conducting site maintenance, all systems are back online at this time.
Sunday, February 10th – 6:50 PM CST
Our sites are currently down due to continued updates and improvements in response to the recent ransomware attack.
In an effort to reduce down time during business hours, we will restore large sections of the system internally throughout the night. These improvements should significantly reduce error messages and optimize the response times of our sites.
We expect all systems will be restored by 12:00 AM CST.
Friday, February 8th – 3:06 PM CST
Performance improvements are now complete. QuickOrder and Colony are back online at this time. We hope to keep service interruptions to a minimum as we continue to recover from this ransomware attack.
Friday, February 8th – 1:01 PM CST
We have temporarily taken QuickOrder and Colony down for performance improvements. QuickOrder and Colony will be back up and restored once complete.
Friday, February 8th – 10:04 AM CST
We are continuing to progress through security protocols while monitoring our sites. At this time, we are aware of some performance issues and timeouts in the system and are actively working on a solution. If you are experiencing any service interruptions while placing an order, we are keeping a record of these instances. As a best practice, we ask that you please send your plate number(s) to help@transnetyx.com.
If you have any questions please contact us via email or by phone at +1 888 321 2113.
Thursday, February 7th – 1:48 PM CST
Thank you for your patience. We have restored all of our systems, sites and data. We hope to keep service interruptions to a minimum as we continue to recover from this ransomware attack.
Please be aware that we will be experiencing significant delays in the turnaround of results. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused by these delays.
If you have any questions please contact us at help@transnetyx.com or by phone at +1 888 321 2113.
Thursday, February 7th – 10:18 AM CST
Due to the recent ransomware incident, we have unfortunately had to take down our website and functionality for a brief period of time. This process is slow and tedious and must be managed carefully and safely.
We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience through this process. At this time phone and chat support is not functioning. Please continue to monitor this page for the latest information.
Wednesday, February 6th – 1:45 PM CST
Thank you for your patience as we continue to restore our sites from the recent ransomware incident. We are aware that some data from last Thursday (1/31) through Saturday (2/2) is not visible at this time. Please know that the systems are still updating, and we are continuing to work with industry leaders to restore all data. If you are concerned about the recent samples you have sent, know that we are still processing and storing them to maintain sample integrity.
Contact us via email or phone at +1 888 321 2113 with additional questions.
Tuesday, February 5th – 3:47 PM CST
Thank you for your patience as we continue to work on our sites. After working through our cyber security protocol, we have identified that we were the victim of a ransomware virus attack. We are actively working to restore all of our systems while ensuring the integrity of your data. You can now continue to utilize our sites with the exception of strain management and Genetic Monitoring services within QuickOrder.
At this time, we do not have any evidence suggesting that user account information (user email addresses, telephone numbers, or encrypted account password) or customer data has been accessed or acquired by the persons responsible for this attack. If we determine that such information has been accessed or acquired by the persons responsible for this incident, we will inform you with all due speed. We do not know the identity of the individuals responsible for this attack, but we intend to work with law enforcement to seek justice for this incident.
Since discovering the ransomware, Transnetyx has been working with internal and external IT, security, and forensics teams to investigate and address the incident. This has included taking systems offline to limit the spread of the ransomware as well as installing industry leading security monitoring software on our systems to protect them.
Monday, February 4th – 10:20 PM CST
Hello, We regret to inform you that we are currently experiencing a network outage. A full team of our internal IT and operations personnel are currently on site, working together with our external IT resources to resolve the issue and determine the root cause as quickly as possible. We anticipate delays in releasing results and processing newly submitted samples at this time. We will provide you with additional information as we progress and appreciate your patience as we resolve this issue. If you have have any critical inquiries in the interim, please reach out via email at help@transnetyx.com.
Sunday, February 3rd – 1:02 PM CST
Hello, We wanted to inform you that our website is currently down. During this time, you will not be able to access results or place orders. We are working on resolving this issue as quickly as possible. If you have have any critical inquiries in the interim, please reach out via email at transnetyx.inc@gmail.com.