Summary

Squiz identified operational issues with Funnelback services in the UK, leading to search function disruptions and latency for several customers.

Customer Impact

A small subset of UK Customers may have experienced delays in search results when attempting to utilise the Funnelback search function.

Issue and Resolution

We observed a steady increase in traffic, which was able to bypass previous rulesets, by appearing to be from more valid sources. As a result, more targeted and bespoke rules and rate-limiting controls were put in place to prevent systems from being negatively impacted.

The traffic these rules targeted were of an automated nature, and no "real person" traffic was impacted by them. We have found no evidence that this was an attack of any sort.

In rare circumstances some customers were negatively impacted as a result of these actions. Squiz support teams have liaised with these customers directly to resolve these issues.

Mitigation

We have Identified additional protection measures that have now been implemented across our FB DXP Services.

• This include enhancing caching rules
• Enhanced rate limiting for specific automated traffic sources eg Facebook and Tencent (WeChat)