Ireland’s largest telecoms operator Eircom has confirmed that users have experienced further outages due to a suspected hacker denial of service attack.
Last week Eircom confirmed that there was a domain name server (DNS) outage on its website after users complained they were being redirected to bogus sites, leading to speculation the company’s server has been hacked. The company said that “unusual and irregular” traffic was to blame.
But last night users were once again complaining they could not get internet access or were suffering delays in browsing. Eircom’s service was completely down for most of yesterday evening but was restored by 11.15pm last night.
“While it is too early to confirm, Eircom believes that it is related to an unprecedented volume of traffic deliberately directed at our network which has caused difficulties for customers over recent days.
“Service has been restored to our customers since late last night. Our technical specialists have been and will continue to work to around the clock to determine the source of the problem.
“Eircom has been in contact with other operators in the Irish market to collaborate and pool technical expertise in this area,” the company said.
Telecom industry insiders have suggested that Eircom is particularly vulnerable to such an attack due to its highly contended network with minimal spam prevention and security against Denial of Service (DOS) attacks.
By John Kennedy
