Staminus Communications

Staminus Communications, also known as Staminus, is a United States‑based company that provided distributed denial‑of‑service protection and hosting services. The firm positioned itself as a cybersecurity provider, offering solutions designed to mitigate large‑scale traffic attacks for its customers. Its client base included operators in the gaming sector as well as organizations that attracted controversy. Services were delivered from its headquarters in the United States, though the exact geographic reach beyond that is not specified in the source material. By marketing DDoS mitigation and hosting as core offerings, Staminus sought to differentiate itself in the competitive security services market.

In March 2016, Staminus suffered a significant network breach that reset its routers to factory defaults and caused widespread system outages. The intrusion allowed attackers to exfiltrate customer data, including names, email addresses, and database structures. Service disruptions persisted for affected clients even after partial restoration efforts were undertaken. The outage impacted multiple customers, indicating that the company’s infrastructure supported a non‑trivial number of simultaneous connections. Publicly, the attackers released a sarcastic list of “tips” that highlighted the security shortcomings they had exploited.

The disclosed tips pointed to several operational deficiencies, such as the use of universal root passwords across devices. They also noted that systems were left unpatched, leaving known vulnerabilities unaddressed. Exposed power management interfaces were accessible from the network, increasing attack surface. Additionally, plaintext credit card information was stored improperly, violating basic payment card industry safeguards. These findings contrasted sharply with the company’s self‑presentation as a security specialist and underscored gaps between its marketed capabilities and actual practices.