Businesses reeling after Telstra shuts down email network over privacy breach

SMEs are reeling after they found themselves without internet access on the weekend after Telstra shut down parts of its network due to a privacy breach.

Over one million customers lost access to their email on the weekend, but several entrepreneurs have complained about losing access which forced them to put negotiations and other discussions on hold.

Telstra updated its blog yesterday, with head of online and social media Danielle Horan saying the company is undertaking a full investigation. It also said the BigPond email site is now available for the majority of customers.

The company was contacted this morning, but no reply was available prior to publication. However, it is believed more customers are seeing their email access returned.

Business owners took to the Whirlpool forums over the weekend to vent their frustration over the outage, with several saying they were unable to do business and were even considering leaving Telstra.

One poster known as Mraj, wrote that “at this point, I would much rather leave them as a customer and take my business to a carrier that is more serious about privacy and protecting mine and their interests”.

Another poster, known by Uniquecomp, wrote in a frustrated post that email was still in lock-down mode in Saturday. “For how long Telstra BigPond?” the poster asked.

Another poster known as “ah123” wrote that while they hadn’t suffered a breach, “I’m an online retailer and sales are way down”.

“This happened when Sony was hacked, Citibank, Lush, etc. When this happens people get scared and stay off the net in droves.”

The entire debacle started on Friday, when a poster on the Whirlpool forums noted that private user information could be accessed through the internet.

As a result, Telstra shut down its network. The breach has affected hundreds of thousands of customers, and the telco has already told them to reset passwords.

The backlash on Twitter has been furious, with several posters complaining of trying to run businesses without email access.

On its blog, Telstra has said users should regularly reset their passwords as a security precaution.

But this isn’t the first time Telstra has suffered a security problem. Last year it was discovered the telco had sent some bills to the wrong addresses, inadvertently revealing some customer information.