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TalkTalk and Post Office broadband suffer cyber-attacks

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TalkTalk and Post Office broadband suffer cyber-attacks

PostAuthor: Anthea » Fri Dec 02, 2016 1:10 am

Hundreds of thousands of TalkTalk and Post Office broadband users are knocked off the internet by cyber-attack that seizes control of their routers

The attack affected 100,000 Post Office customers on Sunday
Today it reached up to 360,000 TalkTalk customers across UK
Germany's Deutsche Telekom was hacked earlier this week


Hundreds of thousands of TalkTalk and Post Office broadband users were knocked off the internet by cyber-attack seizing control of their routers.

The attack affected 100,000 Post Office customers on Sunday and up to 360,000 TalkTalk customers across the UK today.

It used a piece of malware known as the Mirai worm, which is spread via compromised computers and works by taking control of devices running the Linux operating system and using them to knock services offline.

A spokesman for TalkTalk said in a statement: 'Along with other ISPs in the UK and abroad, we are taking steps to review the potential impacts of the Mirai worm.

'A small number of customer routers have been affected, and we have deployed additional network-level controls to further protect our customers.'

The spokesman told MailOnline that a 'single-digit percentage' of its 4million customers - up to 360,000 - could have been affected but final numbers have not been confirmed.

It follows news from Germany's Deutsche Telekom earlier this week that up to 900,000 of its customers had lost their internet connection as part of the same incident. No-one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

Earlier, a spokesman for the Post Office said the issue had begun for their customers on Sunday but that no personal data from users was at risk.

'Post Office can confirm that on November 27 a third party disrupted the services of its broadband customers, which impacted certain types of routers,' they said in a statement.

'Although this did result in service problems we would like to reassure customers that no personal data or devices have been compromised.

'We have identified the source of the problem and implemented a resolution which is currently being rolled out to all customers.

'We would like to apologise to any customers who have been experiencing issues with their Post Office broadband service. For those customers who are still having problems we are advising them to reboot their router.'

A similar attack on the US-based Dyn web domain provider in October knocked a host of prominent websites offline, including Spotify, Twitter and Reddit.

Security experts have suggested the aim of the attack may have been to simply cause disruption.

Jonathan Sander, from security firm Lieberman Software, said: 'When the modified Mirai attack hit Deutsche Telekom over the weekend, many guessed that the fact that it simply shut down the devices it hit was a mistake by the bad guys trying to steal data.

'Now that Post Office routers are falling victim to the same type of attack shutting them down, it begs the question if the shutdown is the goal.

'Most cyber crime is about money. But every now and then there are bad guys who just want to watch the world burn.'

WHAT IS THE MIRAI WORM?

The Mirai worm is a piece a piece of malware which is spread via compromised computers.

It takes control of devices running the Linux operating system.

It turns these devices - which can be anything from baby monitors to webcams or even kettles - into remotely controlled 'bots'.

These 'bots' can then launch large-scale attacks, bombarding servers with simple requests for information causing them to become overwhelmed and shut down.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... uters.html
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TalkTalk and Post Office broadband suffer cyber-attacks

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