Berlin: Deutsche Telekom AG fell victim to hackers using malware that targets household devices, with hundreds of thousands of customers experiencing technical issues with their phone, internet and TV services.
Hackers infected Deutsche Telekom customers' routers, causing as many as 900,000 of the carrier's more than 20 million landline subscribers to lose service or see disruptions, the company said on Monday.
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Old crimes with new techniques
With the rise of the internet of things, Jim Kent, CEO of cyber security company Nuix asks for vigilance because if things can communicate, then they can be interrupted and attacked.
"We saw attacks from the Mirai botnet that targeted customer routers globally," Thomas Tschersich, head of IT security at Deutsche Telekom, said in a video message posted on Twitter. "The attack led to the devices crashing."
The issues have been largely fixed after the carrier sent software updates to the devices and updated its network with "filter mechanisms" to prevent malware from spreading again, Tschersich said.
Security professionals have been anticipating more attacks on internet-connected gadgets since a hacker released software code that powers malware called Mirai.
The type of malware, which targets vulnerable devices such as cameras and digital video recorders, was also to blame for the cyberattack that took down some of the world's most popular websites last month.
The hackers also tried to disrupt government networks but failed to breach its security systems, Germany's Federal Office for Information Security, or BSI, said in a statement.
Bloomberg