Telecom cancelled the passwords of about 60,000 Yahoo! Xtra
email accounts on Saturday night to stop spam being sent from
customers' accounts.
Customers unable to log on had to change their passwords
through the Yahoo! Xtra website after answering security
questions.
Once they had access to their usual email account, they were
then greeted with an email from Telecom saying: ''We have
cancelled your current password and you will need to, or have
had to, change your password immediately to use your email
account.''
About 15,000 Telecom customers had earlier been told about
the need to get a new password after a cyber attack last
weekend.
Telecom head of communications Andrew Pirie said yesterday:
''We've been educating people over the last week to try and
change passwords, and tens of thousands [of customers] have,
but out of our 450,000 customer base, we are aware as of last
night (Saturday) there were still 60,000 accounts that were
having this problem.''
If customers did not change their passwords, spam could be
sent from their email account, he said.
''Anyone who had been sent an email from Telecom must change
their password, otherwise they will be locked out of the
system.''
Telecom call centres were being swamped with queries and it
asked customers to be patient when contacting the customer
service team as call volumes were extraordinarily high, he
said.
''People should go online to change their passwords because
we're getting literally hundreds, if not thousands, of people
trying to call the help desks to walk them through it.''
Late last night, customers attempting to change their
passwords through the Yahoo! Xtra website were advised of
delays of up to an hour. - Additional reporting The New
Zealand Herald
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