This article is more than 1 year old

PlusNet blames itself for webmail spamfest

Russian connection in hacking investigation

PlusNet has accepted blame for its latest email blunder, having previously fingered vulnerabilities in third party webmail software for last week's security flap.

The Sheffield-based ISP admitted late yesterday that it was its implementation of @Mail's webmail code which exposed thousands of subsciber email addresses and contacts to spammers. The firm made the mea culpa in an detailed incident report posted on its website, which had been promised for last Friday.

On Wednesday last week, a company spokesman told us the hackers had found a new vulnerability in @Mail's messaging platform. Today Plusnet said: "The attacker exploited a vulnerability within the @Mail webmail code which was compounded by vulnerabilities within our own implementation."

Since it took the service offline, PlusNet has implemented a more basic SquirrelMail open source webmail platform, which it plans to stick with. The BT-owned outfit said it was researching "longer term" options for improving the service and integrating it with the PlusNet portal and other communications tools, as @Mail had been.

In the wake of the crisis, PlusNet also made a series of promises to improve its security, including SSL encryption for FTP, and POP3 and IMAP email. Subscribers should be able to change their username in future too, to escape spam-stuffed inboxes.

As well as stealing customer data, the attackers loaded pop-up malware on to one of PlusNet's six email servers. The frame linked to a Russian video site which loaded a Trojan on to the user's machine. Beyond the Russian connection, PlusNet has not released any details of the ongoing criminal investigation into the hack. ®

More about

More about

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like