Coronavirus Downtime

The Coronavirus Downtime (chronologically the Ninth Server Downtime, and unofficially referred to as the Slavic Miner Lockdown) was a downtime that lasted from 28 March 2020 to 13 April 2020.
Currently, this is the longest downtime to date, totaling at 16 days.
==Chronology==
;Saturday, 28 March
:Operator BUFFbeard, who was randomly glancing at the server console, noticed an Rcon connection and immediately reported it towards QuestionTuesdayFTW & NerdieSanders. This was not the first time but due to a convention being gathered on the server involving six players, the server had to be shut down temporarily for a small investigation. The convention continued in voice chat and was later concluded on the server the following day.
"RDP has just informed me that we may have a bit of an issue with the server (Potential coronavirus outbreak in the server files again?). Server shut until further notice. This isn't going to be a thing that lasts a couple of hours, we're looking at significant downtime." ~ QT
;Sunday, 29 March
:Server is briefly opened after RDP gives an all clear but is then shut down again. Nerd decides to dub the virus, "TSM-20", short for the Slav Miner.
"RDP put it this way: You can either lose the server for a day or for a month, take your pick" ~ Nerd
;Tuesday, 30 March
:Nerd polls the UMS playerbase on whether they would approve the team upgrading the server to 1.15.2 whilst the preview version of 1.15.2 Optifine (99%.1 at the time) was around. The votes were unanimous and this was approved.
;Wednesday, 1 April
:Nerd makes a server announcement on Discord, although it was mostly made as an April Fools Joke:
"After a couple of days, it has come to the attention to operators and executives that the server is experiencing a major SARS-CoV-19 outbreak. We are declaring a state of emergency. This server will go into quarantine, effective immediately. Everyone is ordered to stay away from this server, and stay home."
;Thursday, 2 April
:Nerd releases another announcement, finally giving light towards the playerbase on the issue.
"As April Fools is closing, I wish I can lift the quarantine up, but unfortunately I won't do that because I'm declaring an official server downtime. The following will be the official account as of April 1st, 2020, at time posted from me.
Last Saturday, March 28th, 2020, RDP received an email from our server host that the server is running at a capacity too high for what it's supposed to handle, and as this violates the host's TOS, they threaten to shut us down and we would permanently lose our server. So we went investigating and found out that there were some viruses planted in our server files directly—I'll call these TSM, for "The Slavic Miner", similar to how we're naming viruses nowadays. The reason why it got its name is because after some initial checks on these files from Google, these files are crypto miners attempting to mine for some cryptocurrencies, and some of the logins we found out came from Russia.
So we attempted to eliminate TSM from our server, and reopened the server as we thought that we are free from the virus—we were wrong. As it turns out, the virus(es?) was still there and we had to shut down again. Going through the logs of the server, we found out that someone was brute forcing their way into our server, so we had to shut it down.
As of now, we have already saved the most important files from the server—the Minecraft worlds, data and its plugins.
In the interest of transparency, here's what I can say: this problem is beyond our skills. However the three of us (RDP, QT, and me) are trying our hardest within our limits as we go. We have a solid line of communications and we work on the elimination of the virus whenever possible together.
After the situation is resolved, we'll also do some infrastructure upgrades, mainly putting the server at a more up-to-date operating system, beefing up our security, updating MC to 1.15.2, and a new topdown render. We cannot provide an ETA for any of these, but it will come.
On behalf of operators, executives, and myself, I sincerely apologize for letting this happen and not preventing this sooner. Any question should be directed at me, and I hope I can answer them all in #general.
God speed,
NerdieSanders"
;Sunday, 12 April
:A small announcement was made:
"Fun fact: UMS is helping to stop the coronavirus. Not going to give a date for reopening but I'll just say that it's Soon™️" ~ QT
;Monday, 13 April
:Nerd announces the reopening of the server alongside the downtime being over.
;Wednesday, 15 April
:Nerd successfully upgrades the server to 1.15.2.
==Trivia==
* This downtime is referred to as the Coronavirus Downtime as it occurred during the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic of 2020, and the April Fools joke associated with the downtime. The April Fools joke was originally intended to go ahead regardless of there being an actual downtime or not.
* The name of the perpetrator was coined after Jononator323 390 called them "our slav crypto miner" - in reference to their alleged Russian nationality.
Category:Server Downtimes
Category:Events