Telekom Austria said no customer data was compromised by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on its mobile and fixed broadband infrastructure that took place over the weekend.
The operator confirmed its mobile infrastructure had been subjected to a DDoS attack from Jan. 30 and stated its engineers had neutralised the attack by Feb. 2. The attack affected subscribers of Telekom Austria's A1, bob, yesss! and Ge org brands, and spanned its 2G, 3G and 4G networks.
In a statement Telekom Austria said its fixed-line infrastructure also came under attack on Feb. 2, but that its engineers blocked the threat "within minutes."
The operator apologised to its customers for the loss of service, but assured them that no subscriber data had been "stolen or compromised" during the attacks.
A spokesman told Reuters that the operator is unsure who was behind the attack or where it originated, but noted that the company's broadband connections were once again secure.
UK ISP TalkTalk this week revealed that a cyber attack on its network in October 2015 contributed to the loss of 101,000 subscribers in the final three months of 2015 -- TalkTalk's fiscal third quarter -- after it shut down online sales channels to counteract the attack. The company predicted the cost of restoring its network would total between £40 million (€53 million/$57.9 million) and £45 million.
The attack on Telekom Austria also came hot on the heels of a warning by Telefónica that the nascent Internet of Things (IoT) sector faces security challenges, with a lack of standardisation a key weakness in the market at present.
Telekom Austria separately announced that Margarete Schramböck will become the CEO of A1 Austria for a five-year tenure from Jun. 1.
Schramböck brings 20 years experience of the ICT sector gained with companies including Alcatel-Lucent and Dimension Data Austria, experience that Telekom Austria group CEO Alejandro Plater said will be key to achieving one of the operator's main priorities moving forward.
For more:
- see Telekom Austria's cyber attack statement
- view the operator's CEO announcement
- read this Reuters report
- view TalkTalk's fiscal Q3 earnings statement (PDF)
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