"This is not the first time we've experienced DoS attacks, but the latest series of attacks -- which began around early March -- has been the worst and most frequent we've experienced so far. 

"They've caused congestion and the slow data rates experienced by Streamyx subscribers, as well as problems with authentication," he said. 

According to Baharum, when TM Net support staff resets one part of the system which had hung, the attack would resume again soon after on another part of the system. 

"We've been having sleepless nights trying to solve the problems caused by these attacks, which come in rapid succession," he said. 

Baharum claimed TM Net had isolated the problem yesterday night, and will be working over the weekend to analyse it in detail to try and identify the source or sources of the attacks. 

So far, the attacks seem to be coming from various local and overseas IP (Internet Protocol) addresses, but TM Net believes the addresses it has identified are surrogate addresses used to disguise the identity of the actual culprit or culprits. 

The company had not filed a police report as at press time, citing the need to gather more accurate information first, a TM Net spokesman later told In.Tech. 

Being picked on 

Baharum would not speculate on whether the recent attacks were politically motivated because of Malaysia's stand against the possible US attack on Iraq and the anti-war resolution adopted by the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) meeting in Kuala Lumpur last month. 

As for why only TM Net's Streamyx service was being targeted, and not its ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) or dialup services, TM Net engineers believe that it's because Streamyx uses a lot more hardware and software. It also goes through a digital subscriber line access module (DSLAM) and Telekom Malaysia's COINS network. 

Thus, Streamyx presents more targets for malicious parties to attack. 

"Moreover, with Streamyx being always-on, and especially with home users generally not taking the same precautions to install firewalls and other such protective measures, their computers are easy prey for attackers who can make their PCs surrogate sources of attack without their knowledge," said Baharum. 

Broad swathe of complaints 

The Streamyx service has been under constant fire from irritated consumers since it was launched last June. Almost all aspects of the service have been heavily criticised -- from the long delays in processing applications and finally getting the service installed, to billing irregularities and the intermittent service quality. 

TM Net had called the emergency press conference today after In.Tech had presented excerpts from many readers' letters to Energy, Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Amar Leo Moggie, who had officiated at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission's new building in Cyberjaya (see Star Business today) yesterday. 

Two readers spoke about the slow Streamyx service, the difficulty in getting through to Streamyx customer support at 1-300-88-9515, and the support staff's inability to provide sensible answers. 

"Streamyx service had been fine since I started using it about three months ago, but within the last two weeks it's been as slow -- if not slower -- than a 56 Kbps modem," said Mohamed Ridzuan Abdullah, who installed Streamyx in his apartment in Taman Seputeh near Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur. 

Another reader, an IT officer with a securities firm in Shah Alam, complained that his company headquarters and its three branches all experienced instabilities with Streamyx service, which took a turn for the worst and went down for six days beginning Feb 28. 

Both readers complained bitterly about the difficulty in getting through to the Streamyx helpline, and of not getting any sensible answers when they eventually did. 

According to Baharum, TM Net's Streamyx servers in Brickfields -- which serve about 400 subscribers (about 2% of its Streamyx subscriber base) -- was the worst affected by the attacks. 

Like a traffic jam in one part of town affecting traffic elsewhere, the congestion in Brickfields caused slowdowns in other parts of the system, which was what was experienced by users in Shah Alam and other places. 

"Our callcentre has been receiving 5,000 calls per day, which had overwhelmed the ability of its 100 agents to handle -- this is why callers had to wait so long for a reply," said Baharum. 

"We apologise for the inconvenience caused by these attacks and we are considering customer's requests that we reimburse them for the drop in our service resulting from these attacks," he added.