28 October 2016

Singapore, 28 October 2016, 4pm – To further safeguard our network and our customers from cyber attacks, we are scheduling home visits to customers whose home internet-connected devices were likely accessed without their knowledge during the 22 October and 24 October 2016 Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on our home broadband Domain Name Servers (DNS). We would like to thank customers for their cooperation.

During the home visits, our technical service officers HubTroopers will conduct an on-site investigation before helping the customers secure any unsecured internet connected devices. These may include installing anti-malware software, changing default passwords, updating device software, fixing device mis-configuration and/or replacing devices.

Compromised devices can be likened to a home with an open or unlocked backdoor. In the internet world, such unprotected devices can potentially allow unauthorised access to sensitive data, like passwords, credit card information, and video streams from webcams. Unbeknownst to the owners, these devices can also be used as an army of cyber weapons for malicious activities, like sending spam, slowing internet access and launching attacks to take down websites and IT systems.

We would like to rally everyone to play an active role in cyber security readiness. We encourage customers to review the security settings of their internet connected devices and disconnect any suspect device.

We will provide further updates after the home visits.

Notes:

1. DNS is a database that converts web addresses like www.nameofwebsite.com into machine readable sets of digits, for customers to view websites on their computers. When a DNS is not operating normally, customers may face difficulty in accessing the internet. 

2. DDoS happens when an IT equipment such as a computer, router or server is flooded with a sudden and enormous volume of traffic over a very short period of time from multiple sources, in an attempt to cause congestion or to shut it down.