Network Security, Vulnerability Management

Deutsche Telekom customers left hanging by possible hack

Nearly a million fixed-line network customers of German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom AG on Sunday began experiencing service disruptions, possibly to due hacker sabotage, the company has announced.

The telecom connectivity issues appear to have affected approximately 900,000 customers using Speedport W 921V or Speedport W 723V Type B routers. On Monday, the company made available a corrective software update for these routers, which provide users with phone, Internet access and online TV reception.

Deutsche Telekom, which owns a majority of T-Mobile US, services roughly 20 million fixed-network customers. Those impacted by the outage have been experiencing “temporary problems or very marked fluctuations in quality,” the company explained in a statement, while others were getting no service at all. “Based on the error pattern, we cannot exclude the possibility that the routers have been targeted by external parties with the result that they can no longer register on the network,” the company concluded.

A Reuters report quoted several German government sources as saying that the incident “obviously looks like the work of hackers.”

Bradley Barth

As director of multimedia content strategy at CyberRisk Alliance, Bradley Barth develops content for online conferences, webcasts, podcasts video/multimedia projects — often serving as moderator or host. For nearly six years, he wrote and reported for SC Media as deputy editor and, before that, senior reporter. He was previously a program executive with the tech-focused PR firm Voxus. Past journalistic experience includes stints as business editor at Executive Technology, a staff writer at New York Sportscene and a freelance journalist covering travel and entertainment. In his spare time, Bradley also writes screenplays.

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