Germany-based Deutsche Telekom has made an official statement today that more than 900,000 routers belonging to their company were knocked down by cyber criminals. This can be touted as the biggest cyber attack in the history of German telecom groups.
The problem started in the early hours of November 27th,2016 when users started to complain that they could not access the internet using their standard Deutsche Telekom Router. After two hours the issue was restored. But early today, the issue was sighted again and the user share experiencing the internet downtime increased to more than 90%.
It was then that the biggest telecommunication provider in Germany reacted and updated its Facebook page with details. It admitted that all its routers were under a cyber attack and the issue will be resolved soon.
In a fresh statement released a few minutes ago, Deutsche Telekom Router users were asked to apply for a software patch through relevant sources. The engineers advised unplugging the devices, wait for 30 seconds and restart their router. If users still experience the same downtime after going through the said steps, they were asked to contact the support team after unplugging the router on a permanent note.
To compensate for the downtime, the company has already announced that the internet services used today and early tomorrow will be offered for free of cost.
As per the preliminary inquiry carried out by Deutsche Telekom engineers, a malware bug was used to exploit the code in the routers. This made the users experience severe downtime and resulted in a big network outage.
Data security has become a prime concern for telecom companies operating around the world. Although, they are trying their best to isolate themselves from such situations, the cyber criminals are still finding their way into their network.
