On July 30, 2018, our systems administration team attempted to set “registry lock” (server{Update,Delete,Transfer}Prohibited) statutes on our primary domain, “letsencrypt.org”. This erroneously resulted in the domain being set to “clientHold” status, preventing DNS resolution and disrupting service for our subscribers and relying parties for a short period of time. We believe this was the result of administrative error or miscommunication at, or between, our reseller, Namecheap, and our registrar, Enom.

Our team is reviewing options for preventing this from happening again, as well as options for resolving issues like this faster should they occur again. We are considering the following actions: