Bobbing-for-Apples: Network Issues

Showing posts with label Network Issues. Show all posts

Monday, 12 December 2011

Telstra - We Are Sorry We Let You Down This Weekend

As you're aware some of our online services were unavailable from late Friday 9th to late Saturday 10th December due to an earlier internal systems issue.

I want to sincerely apologise for any inconvenience you may have experienced this weekend because of the disruption.

Services are now back up again for the majority of our customers, and your BigPond services should be working as normal.

The decision to temporarily reduce access to these services was not taken lightly and I know that our actions resulted in a poor online experience for you and was a source of frustration.

So if you have any technical difficulties after logging into your BigPond email account please see our online help, visit us on CrowdSupport or just call us on 133 933. We’re here to help any time.

Once again, I apologise for the disruption to your service and thank you for your patience.

Best regards,

Peter Jamieson
Executive Director, Customer Service
Click here to see a copy of the email

Sunday, 11 December 2011

Online Services Are Now Available For The Majority of Telstra Customers

http://telstra.com.au/misc/notification.htm

Saturday, 10 December 2011

Does Telstra Need A Free Trial of BigPond Security?

Telstra and BigPond customers wished that Telstra took their own advise and had some security on the Telstra Bundles RightNow web-based database that caused the privacy breach that was reported yesterday!

The database listed customers details including usernames and passwords (Screenshot below). 60,000 customers require their passwords to be changed. Unfortunately changing the passwords disconnects the customers from the Internet and requires them to contact Telstra to get the new password before they can get back online.

With so many customers affected the call wait times to contact BigPond technical support to get a new password are very lengthy. The password change is definitely warranted and I agree that Telstra has done the right thing in changing all affected customers passwords for their security, it is just a shame that security wasn't the original priority when the bundle database was open to anyone on the Internet.

Speculations from security experts and ex-Telstra employees indicate that this issue has been around for many years. Telstra first started using RightNow (the system responsible for the privacy breach) in 2006 and the lack of security was a known issue.

Telstra Media Release From Peter Jamieson - Executive Director Customer Service

As you may have seen from our Twitter updates, due to an earlier internal systems issue, some online services have been unavailable but BigPond email has been restored for the majority of customers and other services are being progressively restored now.

I’d like to apologise to customers who may have been impacted by this issue as we understand the inconvenience it has been causing.

However, protecting our customers’ privacy has been a priority. That’s why as a precaution we disabled our BigPond email, Online Billing, BigPond Self Care and My Account functions and the team has been working around the clock to restore these services.

We will also be resetting the passwords of around 60,000 customers whose password or user ID may have been inadvertently displayed. We are expecting the actual number of customers whose user id and/or password details were displayed to be significantly less than this.

Customers who cannot log into their BigPond accounts or need passwords reset, should contact us on 133 933 anytime. We will also be proactively contacting impacted customers; however it will take some time. We will also keep our Twitter customers updated here twitter.com/telstra and we’ll post more here as information comes to hand.

Again my sincere apologies to all customers that have been impacted. Rest assured, a full investigation is underway so we can put in place measures to stop this happening again.

Regards,
Peter Jamieson
http://exchange.telstra.com.au/2011/12/10/public-announcement/

Telstra and BigPond Services Back Online

Telstra and BigPond Services Back Online for some customers including BigPond email.

Telstra & BigPond Services Still Unavailable

Telstra.com and BigPond.com still unavailable after yesterdays privacy breach

BigPond email is working but customers aren't able to access it until the online services are turned back on. Telstra gives a estimated restore time of later today.

Updates available from http://servicestatus.bigpond.com/