Logs reviewed by technicians last night showed unusual activity from one particular IP address Monday afternoon with increasing broadcasts from the same IP address for a number of hours until the network was compromised and brought down.
According the Manager, Network Engineering, Mr. Jed Carty, the attack was directed against TelEm Group by malicious person or persons who so far have not been identified.
“We have reported the incident to the relevant authorities who make it a point of following the IP address trails of such attacks to identify where they are coming from and to warn other ISPs around the world about their operations,” said Mr. Carty.
He said Monday’s cyber attack left customers throughout the island without mobile data and ADSL internet connections for close to five hours while the malicious IP address and other suspect IP addresses were isolated from the company’s switching equipment.
“No ISP is totally immune from such attacks, but we will be monitoring all broadcasts more closely over the coming days to guard against any new attacks and to be ready for an immediate response should another attack occur,” assured Mr. Carty.
He said customers literally flooded the company’s Helpdesk for the best part of the day Monday enquiring about the outage.
“Up until late last night the Helpdesk was still assisting customers with reconnections and reconfigurations,” said Mr. Carty. He advised customers to unplug and restart their modems as a first step to getting their connections restored and also advised customers to call TelEm Helpdesk on Tel: 548 – HELP should they still be experiencing difficulty.
Mr. Carty has meantime apologized to customers on behalf of TelEm Group management for the interruption in service.
