TalkTalk website STILL down on day TWO

Breaking: Talk Talk confirms it has been the victim of a "sustained cyber-attack." Internet provider Talk Talk is in the second day of its outage woes, with its website still on its knees and customers continuing to report connectivity issues. The issue first appeared yesterday at 3pm. However, according to outage website …

[Phil W]

"Posted with the Acme Splaffer."

I'm not sure if you like The Register too much, BSD too much, or have to much time on your hands, or all of the above!

[CP/M-80]

+1 for your splaffer

[Richy Freeway]

Why do people insist on using ISP provided email? Even a Hotmail account would be better.

[aidanstevens]

I'd rather trust my e-mail to an ISP over a budget web host.

Typical problems include the SMTP server keeps on getting blacklisted, e-mails do not get delivered and with no bounce/error message (only running an e-mail trace in cPanel shows a delivery failure), hosting providers not backing up servers properly and then their hardware failing, and so on and so forth.

I still use the e-mail account associated with an ISP I left many years ago. There are no ads on the web interface and I have IMAP access on my phone. I am using 700% of my disk usage but thankfully they don't seem to have noticed and/or care. Only problem is finding a reliable SMTP server (see above) but on my phone I use my network's SMTP server which is pretty reliable.

To piss the El Reg forum purists off even further, I also use TalkTalk as my home ADSL provider and they have been reliable and more than fast enough for my admittedly modest needs, whilst caving in to threats to leave which ensures that I get as cheap a price as the cheapest competitor. They also were the only people willing to install a new phone line for free.

[Doctor Syntax]

@ aidanstevens

You have our sympathy - maybe.

[ad47uk]

I have been using one and one to host my email for over 8 years and have had no problems what so ever. In this day and age I thought people would have gone beyond using ISP based email services.

[ZSn]

University

It seems that every university that you've ever been at seems to provide a free alumni E-mail account. Some are 'proper' accounts that are not just forwarders. For a mere one of your British pounds (Euros can also be accepted) per month they provide a quite good service. They all seem to trace back to a provider in Newmarket of all places (perhaps the horses go on a treadmill to produce electricity between races). However that provider does actually sort your problems out and give useful advice.

I used to use E-mail provided by ISPs, however when I moved country they wanted a few pound a month just for a forwarding system. Not a good service.

[A Non e-mouse]

Pay email

Can I be the first to recommend Fastmail?

[Doctor Syntax]

Things are improving

They know they've an outage. From what I recall of the standard of customer services when they took over my previous ISP news like that wouldn't have got through to operations so quickly.

[Anonymous Custard]

AOL

It's almost a shame that they split things up from the AOL system (their system is based on AOL's if I remember correctly, which explains a lot in itself) as you used to be able to log in there and see a mirrored mailbox of your own. it used to be quite handy if connection problems happened (like now) or even I you just wanted to dig up an email that you' deleted or downloaded, using it as an archive.

Sadly it no longer seems to be doing it, just tried and my AOL mirror inbox is empty (although you can still log into AOL with your Talktalk credentials if you need to send emails).

Also their (Talktalk's) website says that you can still access email via mobile and tablet, which seems to be the case at least from early this morning (as I'm at work now my tablet is offline, but it still has the email it synch'd at home before I left).

But not having webmail access is annoying, although their servers have been playing silly-buggers for reliable access via their web page for a few weeks now on and off.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: AOL

AOL - Always Off Line?

[Your alien overlord - fear me]

I see Talktalk is like yo mamma, likes going down!!!!

Not aimed at anyone in particular, but hopefully brings a smile to all those unfortunate enough to use TalkTalk.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Talktalk is like yo mamma".

Not like mine, when I called them they didn't manage to sound disappointed with every life decision I've made so far.

[Stuart 22]

Don't panic. The TalkTalk website admin is on the job. Except he is still on hold for TalkTalk Customer Services after trying to switch the hub off and on again as instructed. Next: try another browser?

Popcorn is running short ...

[nk]

First thing I though reading the headline was that old 80's electrop pop group.

Am I the only one?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a shame...

[Oz]

It's my life!

(and so on....)

[jayc]

..roll'd

'Never gonna give you up..' ♫

[adam payne]

Pay peanuts and you get monkeys.

[hatti]

Oh my

Server says no

[Jim Willsher]

Choose a shit provider, expect a shit service. That is all.

Downvotes welcome.

[Stevie]

Bah!

Can I just say "Balls to the Acme Splaffer" and wish everyone involved a long and tedious winter cold?

[MyffyW]

Re: Bah!

I'm starting to get the same feeling towards the Acme Splaffer as I have towards those who seem incapable of switching off the "sent from my [insert handset here]" on their smartphone.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://help2.talktalk.co.uk/oct22incident

Storing credit card data, probably in the clear? Cross them off my list of companies to ever do business with... and I suspect the PCI folk will squeak at them.

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you know how they store your data

So can you check with all direct debit and credit card companies who does and doesn't encrypt details? There has to be a better way to pay than this. 2fa or something

[Martin-73]

BBC is reporting it as a DDoS

linky

Still breaking news at the time of posting but could explain a lot

[martin 62]

more info

from the bbc website:

"The phone and broadband provider, which has over 4 million customers in the UK, said credit card and bank details could have been accessed.

The Metropolitan Police Cyber Crime Unit is investigating the attack, which happened on Wednesday."

looks like peoples credit card info "could" have been obtained we will see as the story unfolds.

[BicBasher]

I've never been able to use TalkTalk's poor webmail. Anyone who really relies on ISP email in this day and age really needs to look at the paid and free offers out there.

[Andy A]

Poor webmail

It's not just the service that sucks.

My auntie, now 89 years old, took to email surprisingly easily, having never previously used any keyboard.

Then came the day her ISP redesigned the interface to make it "new", "modern" and other crap, meaning that she couldn't find anything. Gone were actual words; all that was left was a set of symbols which were, to her, meaningless.

I installed a sensible client on her laptop, and she is happy never to have to face a redesign ever again.

[I_am_Chris]

has over 4 million customers

Not for much longer...

Icon as that's what TT's customers will be doing.

[Anonymous Coward]

You talktalk too much

[Bob McBob]

Not for the first time at Talk Talk

Only when execs do prison time will firms take cyber security seriously.

And I don't give a hoot if the ceo is a customer or not.