Hackers attack Time Warner Cable’s Internet service
February 26th, 2009, 9:15 am · 32 Comments · posted by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
I’ve been receiving complaints from readers who are Time Warner customers and, apparently, this is serious stuff.
Jeff Simmermon, Time Warner’s director of digital communications, said its DNS servers (the system that matches easy-to-remember web addresses to the corresponding numbers — such as ocregister.com instead of numbers) have targeted by ”denial of service” attacks for seven days. Without these translations functioning, web browsers are unable to locate their destinations.
In a message, Simmermon said “hackers have launched a series of DOS attacks on Time Warner Cable’s DNS servers, affecting customer experience in our Southern California and National regions.”
It ain’t pretty, he said. Customers are being affected and getting intermittent error notices like “page cannot be displayed” when looking up a site online.
Reached this morning, Simmermon said that Time Warner isn’t going to ignore this.
“This is a crime that is being perpetrated on us. It’s a big deal and it’s affecting a lot of our customers. We will prosecute,” he said.
Customers should be getting an e-mail on this later today, he said.
Here is the rest of his earlier message:
These attacks are not uncommon, especially for a network as large as ours. However, this particular series of attacks has been larger and more difficult to contain than similar attacks in the past. We suspect that the attackers are using “zombie computers,” or hijacking unsuspecting subscribers’ machines to perpetuate the attack without its owner’s knowledge.
As of 6PM EST on Feb. 24th, we have amplified and expanded early detection and response to this sort of problem.
Customers who want to prevent their computers from being used in this sort of attack should make sure that their anti-virus and firewall software are up to date.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Please know that we are currently working with the help of law enforcement to bring these attackers to justice.
All TWC customers can avoid the issue by using an alternative DNS technology, such as OpenDNS. Switching is pretty self-explanatory.
Also, to get it on the record, I recommend calling customer service and complaining: (888)-TWCABLE. You can also communicate with Simmermon directly by following him on Twitter at twitter.com/jeffTWC
Stay tuned…
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Why does the management at TWC give more respect to ocregister writers then to the people who pay their checks? I pay them serious money for premium services that I can’t even consistently use and they don’t communicate with me, in fact they torture me with a ridiculous computer voice phone and leave me on hold forever to not know anything useful anyways… I hope that they can go back to the ocregister writer for my money after I leave. Sending an email a week after the problem starts to an address that can’t be accessed is stupid. If this idiot is the best form of leadership that this dinosaur company can drum-up, they deserve to go out of business.Since there is finally some competition in my neighborhood, it’s time to send my check to a real company, not to one that runs worse than the dmv.
It’s taken me 8 attempts of clicking on this ‘submit comment’ button just to post this note, due to their incompetence.
Thank you so much for the openDNS advice. Fixed the issue immediately.
Most articles I’m reading on this are giving the impression this is limited to southern California, I’m in Missouri and have been feeling the effects for the same period, tonight it’s the worst. (I’m glad it could happen when KZ2 is released for PS3, no wonder I have time to post about this.)
I found someone posting a reply talking about Time Warner’s shipping american jobs over seas as being the reason for the attacks. I would like to voice the following everywhere I can in response to that person:
Everywhere we are hearing about unemployment numbers here in the USA reaching 8%, and with the government extending entitlements to those out of work. I would like everyone to follow the train of thought here:
“I have lost my job. I have technical abilities to launch a massive attack like this. I am going to use my abilities to launch such an attack instead of using my resources to get another job.”
Whoever launched this attack does have extensive technical abilities, and it’s no wonder the economy is in such terrible shape if that is the response our capable workers have whenever they lose their jobs.
This person has the ability to make an enormous revenue stream of their own, but chose to make life miserable for people using the service. This does not hurt the company — they still collect for services rendered despite the attacks — it hurts the AMERICAN PEOPLE using the service, the same AMERICAN PEOPLE they are “fighting for.”
I am now off the soap box, but consider the train of thought, with their entitlements increasing to where they can still afford internet service to launch their attacks, why should they get a job? Think of the intelligence that is at work here destroying something instead of creating a product others want to buy in a recession… hmm…
I would like to add that the person going around posting this garbage complaint is being seen in many articles, named “WARBMAN” and here as “JEFF”, I would think the authorities should look in that persons direction, since they are making it such a duty to tell EVERYONE about the cause.
No offense to the author, but this article is buried in the alt tech section of the website. I didnt go today’s paper, but I imagine that it isnt on the front page.
This type of news is a big deal. The OCR should use their media muscle to push TW to do something about this quickly and give their clients a credit due to the issues they are having.
On their website it even seems to allude to the fact that clients computers are at risk and can be used by the hackers to cause even more damage.
…but the fact that timewarner is a big contributor to this paper I doubt OCR will do much of anything but bury more stories.
Is anyone really listening???????????????
Jason just found a post by said person. Just Google and there a bunch of posts. Interesting. I hate TW but hmmm
anyway;
”
This demand is too little too late. It is time to become civilly disobedient. We have waited patiently for almost two years for justice. Nada. We will never see justice while the elites are safe from any form of justice.
Americans are now the innocent victims of a war waged by CEOs on the public. The only option left is to wage open war on CEOs. We can do that by committing any form of sabotage on the executives. It is the only way to fight back.
I suggest goggling for a virus builder and arming yourselves with weapons to attack these CEOs. Other forms of sabotage are welcome.
Posted by warbman at 2:19 AM : Feb 25, 2009
+ report abuse + permalink
Yet another in series in TWC excuses for all around crappy service since taking over from a bankrupt Adelphia in 2005 (?) I would have quit RoadRunner a long time ago if there was any serious competition in LA County (or Hollywood, where I live).
I ditched my landline when I got cable access so DSL’s out -even though my upstairs neighbours’ get faster speeds with SBC DSL than I currently ‘enjoy’ with the ‘superior’ RoadRunner speeds TWC keep pimping on their site.
I’m tempted to go with AT&T G4 network card a friend raved about but I’m loathe to commit to long term contracts during the current economy; if I have to move back to the UK, AT& won’t do me much good.
So I’m pretty much screwed. I’m getting the equivalent of *bad* dial-up/DSL service for cable prices.
The customer support blows too. It’s not on their end when I call to report the constant connectivity issues and then I’ll get an engineer over to test my connections and he tells me the opposite (“Oh yeah…a transformer went down in the Valley”).
In short: I don’t believe it (ZOMG…HAX0RZ!!!) for a second. They came in to take over a new market (Adelphia) and screwed the pooch. They oversold bundled packages and bandwidth capacity and then threw out a lame mea culpa sandwich between “it’s not our fault” bread and that only after most of LA subscribers threatened to revolt.