Respond to an abuse complaint

Find the node and address an abuse complaint is about, stop the activity, and reply on the complaint’s Abuse ticket. Start as soon as E2E’s email arrives, because clause 9.2.3 of the Terms of Service lets E2E suspend your services when the activity goes on for more than 24 hours after that email.

Before you begin

Make sure that:

• You can sign in to the node the complaint is about, over SSH or with the tools you normally use. If E2E has blocked the node, its public network and Access Console are not available; see Actions cannot be performed on abused VM.
• You are the account owner, an Admin, or a Project Lead. These users see Abuse Logs in the side menu.
• You have Update permission for Cloud Platform, which you need to reply on a ticket. An Admin or a Project Lead has it by default. See Create a policy set.

Find the complaint

E2E opens an Abuse ticket on your account for each complaint it logs, and adds the complaint to Abuse Logs with the status Open.

To find the ticket, click Support, then Cloud Platform. Support lists Abuse tickets no matter which project you have open. To see only complaints, choose Abuse in All Categories.

For the details of every complaint on the account, click Settings in the side menu, then Abuse Logs. The Abuse Logs page lists each complaint from all your projects, with these columns:

Column	What it shows
Date	The date and time E2E logged the complaint.
Abuse ID	The complaint’s own ID: E2E followed by eight digits. Give it whenever you write to E2E about the complaint.
Node name	The node the complaint is about, or NA when E2E logged it against an address with no node.
Public IP	The public address the complaint is about, as E2E recorded it.
Private IP	The private address the complaint is about, as E2E recorded it.
Abuse Type	The kind of complaint, such as Spam Complaint or Phishing Complaint.
Description	E2E’s note on the complaint, up to 200 characters.
Status	Open when E2E logs the complaint. E2E later changes it to Suspended or Closed.
Report Download	Download, which saves E2E’s report on the complaint.

A complaint with no status shows - in Status. When the account has no complaints, the page reads Currently no complaints are available.

Download the report

E2E attaches its report to the complaint, and you can save it from Abuse Logs. Read the report before you start work on the node.

In the complaint’s row, under Report Download, click Download. The report saves as a PDF file named after the node.

If the download fails, the page shows There was some error in processing your request. Please try again later. Click Download again a little later. If it keeps failing, raise a support ticket with the complaint’s Abuse ID.

Stop the activity

Stop the reported activity at once, including activity by your own users or customers on the node. Cut their access if you need to.

How you stop it depends on what the complaint reports. For a node that is attacking other systems or has been compromised, and for phishing, spam, and copyright complaints, see What counts as abuse.

If E2E has blocked the node, its public network is cut, and MyAccount refuses the node’s actions with Actions cannot be performed on abused VM. E2E can allow Access Console and Power Off on the node so that you can fix it from the console; every other action stays blocked. See Actions cannot be performed on abused VM.

Reply on the Abuse ticket

Reply on the complaint’s Abuse ticket. You can reply at any time, even after E2E has closed the complaint.

1. Click Support, then Cloud Platform, and open the Abuse ticket.
2. In Reply, write what you found on the node and what you did to stop the activity. Include the Abuse ID from Abuse Logs.
3. (Optional) In Attach Files, add files that show what you changed.
4. Click Reply.

Your reply shows in Conversation on the ticket. If E2E has already closed the complaint, your reply reopens the ticket and sets the complaint’s Status in Abuse Logs back to Open. For the reply limits and attachments, see Reply to the support team.

Follow the complaint until E2E closes it

Only E2E can close the Abuse ticket. In Abuse Logs, E2E changes the complaint’s Status from Open to Suspended or Closed.

A block on the node lasts through restarts until E2E removes it. Once the block is gone, the node’s public network comes back and its actions work again. If E2E also suspended the account for abuse, the node stays blocked after the account is restored, until E2E removes the block.

Keep the cause from coming back. If E2E gives you a chance to fix the activity and it happens again, the Terms of Service say your access ends without further notice. To make the node harder to break into, follow the hardening steps at the end of Stop an attack or clean up a compromised node.