Tuesday night, at approximately 8pm CDT, the FBS Hosting team reacted to a vulnerability/exploit that was disclosed to the public about an hour earlier.  The action was to completely disable certain outdated coding on the servers responsible for serving all FlexMLS traffic.  Some members woke up unable to access FlexMLS due to old systems, or out of date browsers.  Flex has provided steps to take to help you deal with this issue if you’re affected, but ALL members should take a moment and update website browsers that they use to “surf the net” such as Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox or other browsers.  Keeping you browser up to date is one of the best protections you have against on-line threats, as they are constantly improved to restrict new threats.

What does this mean for me?

If you are using an XP Windows operating system, Internet Explorer will not be able to load FlexMLS anymore. As was stated in an earlier forum posting, get another web browser installed like Firefox or Google Chrome in order to continue using FlexMLS . If you are using a Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8 operating system, Flexmls will still be functional for you with the Internet Explorer web browser. Just be sure to run your Windows Updates or download the latest version of Internet Explorer from Microsoft’s website. If you aren’t sure what Internet Explorer version you have, go to this website in Internet Explorer and it will tell you.

I’m not using XP, don’t have IE8, but Flexmls will not load for me

There is a setting in your Internet Explorer that you should verify IS applied. This setting is found by clicking on Tools (Gear icon) and then Internet Options. Click on the Advanced tab, then scroll to the very bottom of the list. Depending on your Internet Explorer version, the results will vary, but look for settings that says “Use TLS 1.X” (if you have more than one, check mark them all). If you are still having problems accessing Flexmls, please contact FBS Support at 1-888-525-4747.