Posted: 15th May, 2007 By: MarkJ
UK ISP PlusNet has issued an update to its service status page confirming the theft of customer e-mail addresses by an unnamed third party.
It's not immediately clear how many users have been impacted, although many related individuals reported receiving an increase of SPAM (junk mail) on previously quiet addresses:
Reports of Spam Email (42837) - UPDATEThis is an update to the previously reported issue regarding unusual patterns of unsolicited email that have been sent to some customers' mailboxes. A copy of the last update can be seen here:-
http://usertools.plus.net/status/archive/1179136452.htmPlusNet takes its customers security very seriously.
It has come to our attention that a number of customer email addresses have been obtained illegally by a third party. As a result, some of these customers have experienced increased levels of spam to their email addresses.
We are in the process of contacting all affected customers in order to inform them of the incident and of any steps they need to take to ensure that their Internet connections and computers are safe.
We regret that this has happened but are confident that we have resolved this issue and will monitor the situation closely to ensure that the effect is minimised and the issue does not reoccur.
A detailed investigation continues and we will provide a further Service Status update tomorrow and a full incident report on Friday 18th May 2007. In the meantime please do not contact our Customer Support Centre regarding this issue as our resources are focused on contacting customers who are affected.
Kind Regards,
Liam Martin
Customer Support
Unfortunately PlusNets e-mail platform has gained somewhat of a formidable reputation, which follows various historic technical problems and the loss of messages.