Entries tagged with “Internet service provider” from BroadBand Watch
Eircom, one of Ireland's largest ISPs, has sent an email to its DSL customers to offer an apology and explanation for their outages and service issues that plagued the company in recent weeks:
Dear Customer
As you are aware, eircom customers experienced disruption to their Internet service over the last two weeks. On behalf of eircom, I apologise for the interruption to service and would like to take this opportunity to update you on the current position.
In early July we saw an increase in incidents known as 'cache poisoning'. This is a malicious activity by a third party to redirect customers to fake websites. We took immediate steps to protect our customers from this activity. This involved strengthening of the filters that block unwanted or suspect traffic. Unfortunately many customers could not, as a result of the incidents, access the internet or experienced delays for a number of hours on two specific occasions.
While our preliminary investigations have shown that, in general, our systems worked as intended when the attack occurred, we are taking additional steps to further protect our customers and their internet service. This involves upgrading and replacing some of our server equipment. Service has been fully operational since 14th July and we continue to monitor the situation closely. We want to reassure customers that eircom treats the issue of Internet security very seriously and will continue to take all necessary steps to ensure that an incident such as this does not reoccur.
We sincerely thank you again for your patience over the past two weeks as the measures outlined above were put into place, and apologise again for service interruption. We know that our customers have made eircom Ireland's largest ISP because of its reputation for reliability and its ability to resolve issues when they arise.
Should you have any queries or indeed any comments on this matter, please do not hesitate to contact our customer care team at eircom_DNS_info@eircom.net
Thank you for your continued custom and support,
Kind regards
Gerry Culligan
Director
Consumer Market
(source)
On the plus side, Eircom have made some effort at communicating with their customer base, but on the negative side.. Should this really have happened?
Wasn't "cache poisoning" the focus of Kaminsky's DNS security hole discovery a year ago?
Dear Customer
As you are aware, eircom customers experienced disruption to their Internet service over the last two weeks. On behalf of eircom, I apologise for the interruption to service and would like to take this opportunity to update you on the current position.
In early July we saw an increase in incidents known as 'cache poisoning'. This is a malicious activity by a third party to redirect customers to fake websites. We took immediate steps to protect our customers from this activity. This involved strengthening of the filters that block unwanted or suspect traffic. Unfortunately many customers could not, as a result of the incidents, access the internet or experienced delays for a number of hours on two specific occasions.
While our preliminary investigations have shown that, in general, our systems worked as intended when the attack occurred, we are taking additional steps to further protect our customers and their internet service. This involves upgrading and replacing some of our server equipment. Service has been fully operational since 14th July and we continue to monitor the situation closely. We want to reassure customers that eircom treats the issue of Internet security very seriously and will continue to take all necessary steps to ensure that an incident such as this does not reoccur.
We sincerely thank you again for your patience over the past two weeks as the measures outlined above were put into place, and apologise again for service interruption. We know that our customers have made eircom Ireland's largest ISP because of its reputation for reliability and its ability to resolve issues when they arise.
Should you have any queries or indeed any comments on this matter, please do not hesitate to contact our customer care team at eircom_DNS_info@eircom.net
Thank you for your continued custom and support,
Kind regards
Gerry Culligan
Director
Consumer Market
(source)
On the plus side, Eircom have made some effort at communicating with their customer base, but on the negative side.. Should this really have happened?
Wasn't "cache poisoning" the focus of Kaminsky's DNS security hole discovery a year ago?
Ever since the advent of wireless networks there have been issues with security. While some issues have been quite serious, with sensitive data being purloined by criminals etc., in many instances an insecure wireless network simply allows other people to "piggyback" on it for free.
Why pay for bandwidth / internet access if you don't have to?
One of the ISPs in the UK, however, is attracting a bit of media attention at the moment due to a change in their terms of service:
A storm in a teacup?
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=f2772f74-a6d3-4e71-881b-643ac83a2fc9)
Why pay for bandwidth / internet access if you don't have to?
One of the ISPs in the UK, however, is attracting a bit of media attention at the moment due to a change in their terms of service:
9.6.4 We shall be entitled to terminate the Service immediately if We discover that:Whether the ISP intends to actively pursue clients who abuse their new terms of service or not remains to be seen.
(i) You have accessed the Service using Your username and password on multiple occasions, simultaneously;
(ii) You have permitted (whether knowingly or not) a third party to access the Service using Your username and password; or
(iii) You have permitted (whether knowingly or not) a third party (or third parties) to access the Service using a wireless connection over Your Communications Line.
A storm in a teacup?
Some of the larger ISPs in the UK have signed up to a new code of conduct with OfCom, the UK telco regulator.
The ISPs have made key commitments governing speeds and other key aspects of their product offering:
The list includes household names such as AOL, BT, O2 and many more.
More coverage here
The ISPs have made key commitments governing speeds and other key aspects of their product offering:
- provide customers at the point of sale with an accurate estimate of the maximum speed that the line can support, whether it is in the shop, over the internet or on the phone;
- resolve technical issues to improve speed and offer customers the choice to move onto a lower speed package when estimates given are inaccurate;
- ensure all sales and promotion staff have a proper understanding of the products they are selling so they can explain to their customers the meaning of the estimates provided at the point of sale; and
- provide consumers with information on usage limits and alerting customers when they have breached them.
The list includes household names such as AOL, BT, O2 and many more.
More coverage here
Feed Subscription
If you use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to a feed of all future entries tagged “Internet service provider”.