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[burakkucat]

Interesting to see how this develops.

Indeed it will.

[Weaver]

It's a just a shame that this 15-year old kid can't employ his talents for something more socially constructive.

Despite all the harm caused, I kind of hope they don't throw the book at him, at that age.

[phi2008]

I doubt it's actually a "talent", more an interest. Unlikely he will have crafted an exploit himself but just hung out at the right forums/IRC and copied other people.

Kids do stupid things ... as a young teenager, in idiot mode with a Commodore 64 and a modem, I nearly booked a whole airliner's seats because I thought it might be funny if the plane turned up at the airport and no passengers arrived - luckily a friend stopped me getting myself in trouble(though I think this was before digital telephone exchanges so perhaps my connection may not have been traceable). 

[Weaver]

I doubt it's actually a "talent", more an interest. Unlikely he will have crafted an exploit himself but just hung out at the right forums/IRC and copied other people.

True enough.

[BritBrat]

This maybe off topic, sorry if it is.

I have been onto NatWest bank over the last year as to why a 3rd party (liveperson.net) collects part of my login details (customer number) when entering online banking.

Most people would not see this but I have been using software for years that informs me if the details are entered are not on the same URL as they were first made.

So what has this to do with this thread?

Well just out of interest I put TalkTalk and liveperson.net into a Google search and it seems they started also using their services, I don't know what for but this prompted another phone call to my  bank.

It seems to me they put a lot of trust into 3rd party sites and don't seem to think that maybe they should be checking the security of the services they employ others to do, I may be wrong but that's the impression I got.

I asked what happened to my login detail that live person.net collected and was it stored or not saved, I got no answer. Only that they trusted them.

[broadstairs]

Latest update on the TT site suggests they pro-actively block spam calls at the network level and have been doing so for a long time. Well all I can say is that when I rang to complain about my spam calls from their previous hack into the TT systems a couple of months ago now and asked exactly that question 'Why cant you block at the network level?' I was told that this is not possible and all they would offer was a change of my phone number.

It is a little suspicious now that since this latest attack I have not received any spam calls from the Indian gentlemen at all. I suspect they decided it was about time to try to stop at least some of these calls entering their network.

Stuart

[sevenlayermuddle]

TT are FTSE 250, and ended the day as the Index's strongest riser, by a huge margin.   One commentator I saw attributed this to a TT statement ( not seen it, so may have some details wrong) that they would allow early exit from contracts, but only for those who's accounts are raided.

Now that's clever management.  Keeps the red-top readers happy yet, as it is highly unlikely that anybody at all will have an account raided, so TT will keep all their customers and  suffer no loss, it is good for the business as well.   

Will be interesting to see where the fortunes go from now on.   The share price had already been in decline in recent weeks but I still predict, with all the free advertising, started by BBC's sensationalism, this whole incident could be the turning point?

[renluop]

TT are FTSE 250, and ended the day as the Index's strongest riser, by a huge margin.

Par for the course;buy in cheap and off load to the rabble before theproverbial hits the cooling... 

One commentator I saw attributed this to a TT statement ( not seen it, so may have some details wrong) that they would allow early exit from contracts, but only for those who's accounts are raided.

Now that's clever management.  Keeps the red-top readers happy yet, as it is highly unlikely that anybody at all will have an account raided, so TT will keep all their customers and  suffer no loss, it is good for the business as well.   

Will be interesting to see where the fortunes go from now on.   The share price had already been in decline in recent weeks but I still predict, with all the free advertising, started by BBC's sensationalism, this whole incident could be the turning point?

Well, at least for a few months.

[NewtronStar]

so I'm a little cautious of leaping to the conclusion that the arrest of the 15 year old kid "in relation to talk talk hack" is a simple closure on this.

The problem is he/she is a juvenile so under the (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 it's going to be very hard to obtain information in relation to who or what they did and the media will also be locked down "we will never know"

[Dray]

I just seen the picture of the hacker. It's not Asbokid is it?

[burakkucat]

I just seen the picture of the hacker. It's not Asbokid is it?

Let me see . . . No, that's not the person I know. 

[jid]

I called TalkTalk today, I thought I'd see how much termination fees actually were (I fancied a laugh).

My contract started in December last year, and expires in June, and the current termination fee is £280! :O

So I will be staying, but with them informing me of the £75 extra on top of termination for TV, I won't be renewing the TV contract. I can get Fibre with anytime calls and pay line rental up front for £20 p/m. The hack hasn't really put me off tbh

Signed up for Sky TV today for £24 instead of £30. Regret leaving them tbh the TalkTalk TV hardware is apalling

[kitz]

One thing I did find rather interesting about this is the way the media handled this and the difference in how things came across when watching either Sky News or BBC news.    Sky news seemed to focus rather a lot* on those members of public who were said to have had funds go missing or 'almost' fallen for a scam to clear out their bank account.

Perhaps Im cynical, but Im not sure if I believe that all 'scam' incidents were directly related to the most recent breach of security and some may have been co-incidental.   Im also unsure as yet to the extent of the involvement of the 17 y/o youth.


------
* believe me I watched most of those reports many, many times as they loop every hour or so. 

[burakkucat]

Over on ThinkBroadBand, in their ISPs section of the forum, there is a longish thread on this subject.

Various TBB-notables have given their interpretation of the facts, as the latter have been slowly revealed.

[sevenlayermuddle]

The window cleaner called last week, I paid him with a cheque.

That means he now has...

My name (from the cheque)
My partner's name (joint account, so also on the cheque)
My full address.
Our phone number (from above, and BT directory).
The name of my bank.
Sort code.
Account number.
And (one up on the Talk Talk hackers),  a copy of my signature.

We do that all the time, or at least we used to.   And nobody worried about it.   Why is it then, that when the same data we give away freely to total strangers is 'hacked', people and the media suddenly assume it's terribly dangerous?