Deutsche Telekom is one of the largest internet service providers in the country. In a recent announcement, the company admitted nearly one million of their routers are suffering from connectivity issues and other strange behaviors. Although an exact cause remains unknown, DT feels hackers may be behind this issue. Another possibility is that this could be part of another major IoT attack, although that has not been confirmed.
Deutsche Telekom Routers Are On The Fritz
In this day and age of widespread Internet-connected technology, erratic behavior by individual devices is not uncommon by any means. But when an ISP notices that 900,000 of their routers are suffering from connectivity issues, there is great cause for concern. So far, Deutsche Telekom has not issued any official detailed statement regarding the issue, other than saying that they are aware of the problem.
A preliminary indication hints at the involvement of hackers deliberately attacking the Deutsche Telekom infrastructure. That sounds rather odd, considering that not all of their customers are affected. Then again, the tally of 900,000 routers on the fritz is only an estimate, and the final numbers could be much bigger or smaller.
To be more precise, Deutsche Telekom is not entirely sure why part of their devices are working fine, and others are not. Most customers are suffering from limited internet access or no connection at all. Unaffected users can enjoy their traditional speeds without any hiccups, only adding to the confusion.
Issues first started to appear on Sunday evening, and have only grown worse since. Internet users see their signal as “active internet connection,” yet opening pages is impossible. It appears that someone is pumping traffic to their external WAN IP address, which can cause such issues. Another possibility is that someone is sucking their connection dry for nefarious purposes, such as executing DDoS attacks.
It would not be the first time that such an attack has occurred. A few weeks ago, one of the world’s largest botnets executed DDoS attacks against DynDNS, effectively crippling a portion to the Internet. It is not unlikely that router, modems, and other IoT devices were used during that attack–either that or Deutsche Telekom has made a lot of criminals mad for some unknown reason.
One thing is for sure: service providers need to come up with counters for these types of issues sooner rather than later. Consumers who have little to no internet connectivity are never a group of happy campers. If Deutsche Telekom fails to resolve the matter shortly, it will end up losing a lot of customers in the coming weeks.
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