Misrelate

Hackers have found a backdoor to connect to Virgin Media’s new fibre optic broadband service. The service, which is also known as Virgin Media XXL, has been facing about a thousand such hackers connecting to it for free.

The hackers are employing modems that have had their configuration modified to enable access to the Virgin Broadband superfast fibre optic network. They are thus duplicating Virgin Media’s new broadband modems. The modems that have been given by the company to the new subscribers were closely studied first by the hackers who then figured out a way to hack into the service. However, the hacked connections work at a lower speed of about 30Mbps.

The website TechWatch has published a report on how the provider suddenly woke up to find that over a thousand users were connecting at 30Mbps even though the users’ subscribed packages offered speeds that were much lower than this speed.

No announcement has come from Virgin Media on the issue and it seems that the company has not yet decided on a course of action against the hackers. It is understandable that this sort of a decision cannot be an easy one. There are over a thousand users involved, and dragging them to court could draw a lot of negative attention. However, the law does provide for fines and even imprisonments in such offences.