[OMB=Oh my Buddha]
Yeah, it happened yesterday when I was trying to connect (without success for several hours) to the internet via my streamyx account. Streamyx is an internet broadband service provided by Telekom (one of the telcos) in Malaysia.
As usual, I called the service hotline of streamyx (1300-88-9515) to report the fault. After the routine of flushing the DNS cache, switched off and on the modem/router, unplugged and re-plugged the modem/router as per ‘instructions” with the customer service consultant, the problem is unresolved. Therefore, a report was raised by the customer service and I was informed that the technical service personnel will contact me and come to my office for checking as soon as possible.
To my surprise, a technician from Telekom called me within two hours. My previous experience was that it may take up to few days for them to make first contact let alone solving the problem.
Account “hacked” by third party
The technician asked why I used the account at home and at the office at the same time. I said it was not true as my streamyx account at home is different account from the office with different user IDs.
The technician said would called me back later after some checking. Sure enough he called back shortly informing that my user ID was used by a third party in the state of Kedah which was more than 400 km from Selangor.
He said the third party has accessed my account possibly using my password. Then I realized that recently I asked Telekom to reset the password after some outage. The password was simple and given by the Telekom. It was TMNet123. I forgot to change the password after the reset.
How the third party know the password? – Two possibilities
1. The password was so simple and it is very easy to guess and perhaps easily hacked by a hacker.
2. The password was somehow given to the third party from inside.
My two cents
Therefore it is very important to change your default password given by your broadband provider IMMEDIATELY after you have set up your broadband connection. Most people are plain lazy to do so or simply not aware of such.
It is also advisable to change the password frequently to incorporate letters, symbols, numbers to have stronger encryption.
Have you changed your password?
Tags: broadband, hacked, internet, Malaysia, password, streamyx, telekom
