Eircom Internet service breach `unacceptable'

The effective breakdown of Internet services at Eircom yesterday was "unacceptable", while the manner in which the company dealt with worried customers was "disappointing", the vice-president of the Telecommunications Users' Group has said. Mr Nickey Browne said he was "obviously very concerned" that a hacker was able to access the Eircom Internet service, eircom net, and to view the user names and passwords of the service's 30,000 customers.

Eircom said it had no evidence that any customer's e-mails or websites had been interfered with during Wednesday night's security breach, but as a precautionary measure all customers' passwords were changed by the company.

The new passwords were available by phoning the eircom.net helpline. The number of telephonists manning these lines was increased yesterday to "over 100" Despite the increase, numerous attempts by The Irish Times to get through were fruitless. The number was constantly either engaged or rang out.

An Eircom spokeswoman said she would be checking on how difficult it was to get through. It would be "an absolute disaster" if customers could not get through, she said, adding that there was an answering machine taking details from people if all lines were busy. All customers would be called back, she added. However, there was no answering machine on any of the occasions The Irish Times attempted to make contact.

Customers would also be sent their new passwords by letterpost and these should arrive this morning, the spokeswoman said.

Mr Browne said it was disappointing that Eircom had not provided a freephone number. The 1890 number provided was charged at local rates, although Eircom said customers would be credited for any call made yesterday.

Mr Browne also said customers should have been alerted to the problem "as soon as they [Eircom] knew about it".

Eircom reported the security breach to the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation on Wednesday evening but made no announcement to customers. The first indication eircom net users had that their passwords were no longer valid was when they attempted to log on yesterday morning.

When asked why an announcement was not made on Wednesday night, or why an Eircom representative did not make a statement on yesterday morning's news programmes, the spokeswoman said 30,000 customers did not warrant a national announcement.

She stressed that although a hacker did succeed in breaking into the site they did not gain access to any customer's confidential details or private e-mails. "There is no evidence that this was malicious," she said.

Whether malicious or not, a spokesman for the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland said the incident had set back efforts by the State's chambers to encourage the use of e-commerce.

"It [the service breakdown] has been a major problem for business people around the country," said Mr Malcolm Byrne. "From a business point of view, if we want to encourage people to engage in e-commerce it's very difficult to build up trust in the Internet if people don't feel they can trust the information they put on it is secure."

A spokeswoman for Eircom said that to suggest the incident would set back e-commerce was totally misrepresenting what happened.

"It's easy to sensationalise this, but hacking is a reality of Internet life. We took a pre-emptive strike to ensure no damage was done," she added.