Service Update: Primary Domain Outage (scarybyte.co.za) — Resolved

Updates

> Dec 29, 2025 — scarybyte.co.za reached its registry expiry date (as reflected in WHOIS).

> Jan 5, 2026 — We detected a full outage affecting scarybyte.co.za. Website, helpdesk, portals, and all @scarybyte.co.za email became unreachable due to global DNS resolution failure.

> Jan 5, 2026 — P1 opened with IONOS. Initial responses indicated the domain appeared “Active” in the control panel, but external resolution continued failing.

> Jan 5, 2026 — Hosting support acknowledged the domain was not resolving. DNS troubleshooting and reconnection attempts were performed. A DNS reset was initiated as part of troubleshooting while escalation continued.

> Jan 5, 2026 — IONOS confirmed they were escalating to their Domain Admin / Hostmaster team. Case/Task ID issued: 695c0733ac6ce6700b1bd3ea. Because our email was down, we provided an alternate contact email for updates.

> Jan 5–6, 2026 — WHOIS evidence showed registry-level status codes “inactive” and “pendingDelete”, indicating a deletion pipeline risk and that the issue is registry-side (not just DNS-zone configuration).

> Jan 5–6, 2026 — IONOS Executive Solutions Team (highest escalation) confirmed the case is being treated seriously and escalated to Hostmaster for resolution, with updates to follow.

> Jan 6, 2026 — New temporary communication channels were activated and are operational: 

- support@scarybyte.com
- sales@scarybyte.com
- legal@scarybyte.com
- finance@scarybyte.com

> Jan 8, 2026 — 12:18 — Domain restored and successfully renewed.

What happened

We experienced a major outage affecting our primary domain scarybyte.co.za due to a domain/registry availability issue with our vendor. This prevented the domain from resolving correctly on the internet, which is why access failed globally even though systems behind the domain continued running.

What was impacted

The following services were impacted during the outage window:

• Main website: scarybyte.co.za
• Helpdesk & support portal: helpdesk.scarybyte.co.za
• Customer Portal: portal.scarybyte.co.za
• Information portal / IoC portal (domain-dependent access)
• Email services: any address ending in @scarybyte.co.za (send/receive disrupted)
• And 6 others major services

If you saw DNS errors or “site can’t be reached,” that was consistent with the domain not resolving globally.

What was NOT impacted

To be completely clear:

• Core internal systems were not compromised and remained operational.
• This was not a security breach based on the evidence available.
• The issue was limited to domain resolution / external reachability, which blocked access and email communication.

What we did

Escalated the incident as P1 with our domain/hosting vendor and their executive escalation team.

Maintained alternative comms channels to keep customers supported while the primary domain was unavailable.

Prepared DNS/service validation so that once registry status was corrected, services could return quickly.

What to expect now

Most customers should now be able to access services normally. If you still experience issues:

• It may be due to DNS caching (negative caching / resolver delays).
• Please retry after some time, or switch resolvers temporarily (e.g., 1.1.1.1 / 8.8.8.8) if you control your network.

We are actively validating:

• Website and portals
• Email flow and deliverability (MX + SPF/DKIM/DMARC)

How to contact us (still available)

Our temporary channels remain available and monitored:

• support@scarybyte.com
• sales@scarybyte.com
• legal@scarybyte.com
• finance@scarybyte.com

Evidence Pack

The below evidence pack is published for records purposes:

Domain Detail on the IONOS Portal:

Renewal & Transfer on IONOS Portal (Auto-Renew Active):

Note: ScaryByte did not receive any email related to the domain expiring or renewing. Above evidence show that the domain was still working.