Security breach at Belgacom exposed

Belgacom, the largest Belgian ISP, admitted today that 2,000 of its ADSL accounts were compromised earlier this year. The company discovered details of its subscribers posted on a webpage by hackers who weren’t happy with download limits on broadband internet connections. In Belgium, about 90 per cent of residential ISP …

[John Widger]

Great!

Now lets see the rest of the world rebel.

[Ambi Valent]

Awesome

Now lets see them limit the exposure of personal records........

This ISP must think its customers are half-wits

[Anonymous Coward]

Belgacon

I've ditched my Telenet internet connection for the same reason I would not have a Belgacon one. They cost WAY too much and that 12Gb is NOT a download limit but a cap on all traffic (both up and downstream). EDPNet and Scarlet both give you 60Gb per month for around half the cost, and this little issue of someone splashing details around just shows how bad they really are.

[Anonymous Coward]

Facts

I think your 90% figure is a bit high, probably quoting Belgacom's marketing figures again!

Belgacom are probably the least efficient and least customer friendly telco in the world but their infrastructure is generally OK. You can watch Belgacom TV at 2Mb/s so it's not a bandwidth issue. It's probably that they want to try and get more money out of you.

With regard to the figures: Telenet is only in Flanders but there's also cable TV distributors who do Internet, like Brutele. There was Scarlet, but they've been bought by Belgacom and there's Voo, others too.

[NinjaOnTheBeach]

customer service

6 months after the breach and Belgacom sends a letter ?

It took them 6 months to write a letter with no information ?

[TeeCee]

Holy crap download speeds Batman!

3KB/s throttle????????????

Belgacom should thank their lucky stars that the Belgians are a calm and restrained people, whose idea of a strong protest is to nick their "secure" data and post it publicly.

Any nationality more volatile would have tipped up en masse at their HQ for a merry afternoon's chucking of Molotov cocktails.........

[Anonymous Coward]

They were hopless...

...before the web.

I remember them digging up the street to find their ISDN cables, only to cut through the power cable to our depot.

The fact they had a security breach and failed to tell anyone/notice for 6 months isn't a surprise.

[Eric Van Haesendonck]

90% is not really true...

In Belgium the situation is a bit special: Belgacom owns the ADSL lines to your house (the last mile if you want) because it was the national operator. However this arm of belgacom has to "rent" the line to other ISPs to allow you to take an ADSL connection. You are then billed by your ISP for the ADSL connection and traffic.

Belgacom also has it's own ISP service, previously known as Skynet.

In my case I am an EDPnet customer for my ADSL (because they offer a much better deal than belgacom skynet) and THEY set the download limits for my account (up to 60 Gbs). Of the money I pay EDPnet, a part goes back to the arm of belgacom that owns the "last mile" for the rental of the ADSL line from the exchange to my house, but belgacom has nothing to do with my traffic, just the rental of the last mile line to EDPnet.

I am not a belgacom customer! Counting me in the 90% because my ISP has to rent the last mile line to belgacom is not correct. If you count only the customers that have belgacom/skynet as their ISP the number would be much lower.

The only reason I can see to get belgacom as your ISP is if your employer actually has a contract with them and offer you a discount.

[Peter Van Hende]

Users' own fault!

From what I read, no Belgacom servers were hacked! No breach there.

The hackers hacked into 2000 unprotected home networks.

[NinjaOnTheBeach]

reply to user"s own fault

Dear Peter,

The Belgacom servers WERE hacked, the breach for my accounts did not come from an unprotected home network or bad wireless LAN security.

My setup has the wireless LAN on a separate network and only one linux firewall machine on the wired network has a md5 hashed password for the account.

I'm 100% sure the failure and breach is at the provider. One of the accounts "breached" was not even in use or active only ...

I can not believe only 2000 accounts are involved !

Don't trust the spoke person at face value ...

[TonyD]

another belgacom comment

Another comment from Belgacom

( http://www.deredactie.be/cm/de.redactie/binnenland/080611_Hackers_Belgacom )

"Ze hebben hun daden toegegeven en meteen alles van de website gehaald. Wij hebben geen verdere stappen ondernomen. Deze zaak bewijst overigens dat onze veiligheidsdienst goed werkt."

Translated:

"They've admitted their action and have removed all info from the website. Further steps haven't been taken. This case proves that our security service is working"

Pardon me, but from my point of view, your security service was failing!!

[silicony]

Shame on belgacom

In whole europe there's no download limit .. that Shit-Happens only in Belgium.

Shame on you belgacom.

SHAAAAME.