Six PCs caused BigPond problems

A Telstra spokesperson said the carrier had narrowed the list of malware that could have infected the computers to three, adding the problem could have been caused by a combination of those viruses or Trojans. He declined to name the suspects.

He said the PCs generated 95 percent of the bogus requests which caused the problems that evening.

The spokesperson said the carrier was planning to implement additional technologies to protect its DNS systems against malware.

The carrier had ensured the PCs were disconnected once identified and was "working with those customers to ensure the problems do not happen again".

BigPond said in its original statement outlining the problems it "strongly recommends its customers install and maintain adequate security measures on their PC to avoid virus and Trojan infections and the subsequent impact they can have on other Internet users".

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Errr... the problem is not fix ...Anonymous -- 15/04/05

Errr... the problem is not fixed. Multiple users (on whirlpool.net.au) are still experiencing timeouts when viewing webpages.

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Sounds to me like a typically ...Anonymous -- 15/04/05

Sounds to me like a typically bandaid solution. Instead of trying to figure out how to protect their systems from attacks they will simply block infected connections. Simple enough for 5 infected computers, what about 10 infected computers? 20? I hope those account holders are to the end of their 24 month plan! Ditch bigpong! go to internode! Learn to shop around and see just how bad bigpongs deals really are!!!
!

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It wont matter where they go i ...Anonymous -- 16/04/05

It wont matter where they go if people dont learn to protect their computers and use broadband it will cause us all problems, im not clearing telstra of responsibility but it doesnt soley rest with them.

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This has affected other provid ...Anonymous -- 16/04/05

This has affected other providers who have the misfortune to use telstra for the backbone - the systems have been so bad since 10th march - malware is not the plague but has acted accordingly - if 5-6 pcs can affect all the Aus systems - God help us all - it is not to blame the end users infected even though they have no excuse - telstra technicians should stop the traffic of malware and spam fom even getting through their servers - then maybe it will settle

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JUST 6 PC's??????? You have go ...Anonymous -- 16/04/05

JUST 6 PC's???????
You have got to be joking, bigpond.
Just 6 pc's slowed down the dns servers to the largest isp to a crawl. Hundreds of thousands of computers connected and all it took was 6. What kind of connection did these 6 pc's have??? I know...they had 5, 10Tb optic fibre connections to the back of thier box to give them the band width they needed. Twin pentium 4 4.0 in a vapour chill box over clocked to 6.0, with 4 gig memory working 24/7 full blast.

BTW these "6 PC's" would'nt make a dint in optus or iinet's system, cause quite alot of us are using thier dns servers, and they are still working STRONGER than bigponds.
Bigpond, and telstra...do you think we are all that stupid?? cause we know what the problem is, its been happening for a while, spend the cash and update your crap system.

No-wonder they call you big puddle.

PS. people stay away from bigpond. too damn un reliable.

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It does indeed seem laughable ...Anonymous -- 17/04/05

It does indeed seem laughable that a mere 6 computers sending out bogus data requests could hammer the countries largest ISP into submission. Albiet twas only the ADSL service (nortoriously bug ridden as it is) , but only 6 PC's? wtf? lol. Sure if it was 600 or even 60 PC's it'd be somewhat reasonable to believe.

There must at least a few 100 thousand adsl users with *T* , and only 6 zombie (or not) PC's knocked ALL of those offline? or severly restricted access? *stunned look on face*

If Telstra was a bank we'd all be broke due to robberies.

if Telstra was a hospital we'd all be dead due to mishaps and complications.

What an absolute disgrace.

- AW

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The problem is not fixed. Its ...Anonymous -- 17/04/05

The problem is not fixed. Its now 10:45pm on Sunday 17th and the problem is as bad as ever here (ACT).

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The problem is not fixed. Its ...Anonymous -- 17/04/05

The problem is not fixed. Its now 10:45pm on Sunday 17th and the problem is as bad as ever here (ACT).

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Telstra being the largest play ...Anonymous -- 19/04/05

Telstra being the largest player and dominates the industry should be more proactive in prevention and giving better service to its client rather than patching holes or fire fighting all the times.

Isn't a real joke that you just need 6 pcs to paralyse one of network core application DNS ?

The worse part of all, customer is always loosing as they rarely compensate for the stuffed up.

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Or just buy some Safe Internet ...Anonymous -- 18/07/05

Or just buy some Safe Internet Computing device which helps you prevent from such malware,trojan and viruses.

Why not this ISP start bundling such things with their account.

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