The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

HomeChoice in DDOS blitz

Back to normal

Understand how application security is evolving

Broadband ISP and video-on-demand outfit HomeChoice has admitted it suffered a denial of service attack yesterday from hackers which disrupted its service to customers.

Details of what happened are still somewhat sketchy but a spokesman for HomeChoice said: "We had a denial of service attack, and this slowed the system down. We found these requests were coming from two subnets. We blocked these subnet addresses to overcome the problem."

"The problem is now resolved and we apologise for any inconvenience caused to customers, and we are contacting the systems administrators at the attack sources to inform them."

Despite being pressed on the subject HomeChoice is not commenting on the scale of the problem.

A Register reader who alerted us to the problem said he was told servers at all three of the firm's main sites, Staples Corner, Croyden and Grenwich, were "down due to a denial of service attack". He added that HomeChoice's service over the over the last month "has been sporadic due to numerous problems."

The attacks follow the loss by HomeChoice of customer emails last month, a problem it blamed on spammers. ®

Related stories:
Serious security slip at BTOpenwoe
ADSL killed the Video Store
Hacker meltdown fails to materalise
The Mother of all DDoS attacks looms
DDoS degrades the Net

Join our expert panel in discussing application security

Don’t Miss

Win a Samsung C6625!

Reg Lucky Draw Windows Mobile handsets up for grabs

Palm_Pre_001_SMIs your cameraphone an oxymoron?

Pic Review iPhone 3G v iPhone 3GS v Palm Pre

Reg black vulture logoReg Mobile and Wireless newsletter is go! go! go!

Site news Email-tasm

Sign up, sign up for The Register IT security newsletter

Narrowcasting for the email classes