MWEB BUSINESS: HACKED BMWEB, launched in 1997, became South Africa's leading ISP in 1998. It has established itself as a - High-speed antivirus/antispyware software with company that provides a cutting-edge network and automatic updates service infrastructure and outstanding customer ser- - An enhanced firewall vice. Currently, MWEB's customer base of 320,000 In addition, MWEB automatically protects custom- includes home users; small, medium, and large ers against junk email and viruses that are sent via business customers; and corporate clients. MWEB email is delivered to clients' inboxes by automatically won the ISP of the Year award at the MyBroadband cleaning e-mails from recognized malware sources. Conference in Johannesburg in 2010. The award was MWEB advises its customers to keep their ADSL based on the performance of its various broadband connections safe from bandwidth theft and account services as well as on customer satisfaction. abuse by blocking unsolicited incoming connections Its business division, MWEB Business, was to network ports commonly used by hackers. founded in January 1998. MWEB Business prides Despite the multitude of security services offered itself as being a business partner that is perfectly by MWEB, a number of MWEB Business subscribers' positioned to leverage the power of Web-based account details were compromised when their login technologies in all areas of an organization. MWEB and password details were published on the Internet Business helps companies: by hackers. Initial reports indicated that as many as - Manage business data in ways that add real 2,390 users of MWEB's business digital subscriber as to close the gap between technology, strategy, ers gained access to Internet Solutions' self-service - Develop, manage, and maintain solutions that management system, which MWEB Business uses to include all aspects of Internet connectivity, Web yet been migrated to the MWEB network. site development and hosting, broadband and Historically, MWEB Business was a reseller of wireless applications, e-commerce, and consult- Internet Solutions' Uncapped \& Fixed IP ADSL tancy services . services, which were provisioned and managed by - Manage internal information among employees, MWEB using a Web-based management interface proas well as among business partners and suppli- vided by Internet Solutions. All new Business ADSL ers.MWEBhasmovedforwardinpublicizingitsplansservicesprovidedafterApril2010,aswellasthebulkoflegacyservicesalreadymigrated,usedMWEBs for the South African Internet market. According internal authentication systems, which were comto MWEB CEO Rudi Jansen, the company needs to pletely unaffected by this incident. improve the quality of their network, which is not MWEB responded quickly to the hacking incionly an MWEB problem, but also a Telkom network_ dent. According to Jansen, about 1,000 clients on the problem. Despite having a less-than-ideal network Internet Solutions network needed to be migrated infrastructure, MWEB uses AVG Internet Security to from the old server that was attacked by hackers. offer its customers the best possible security while_ Although the network was quickly secured, most online. AVG Internet Security offers MWEB custom- customers had recently been moved to MWEB's IPC ers the following features: network. MWEB also contacted these customers to - Identity protection for safe banking and shop-_ reset their passwords as an added security measure. ping Jansen was quick to note that no personal informa- LinkScanner for safe surfing and searching _ tion was lost and that none of MWEB's clients suf-WebShieldforsafesocialnetworking,chatting,anddownloadingferedanylossesastheirusernamesandpasswordshadbeenrecreatedandchanged.Hefurtheradded - Antiphishing and antispam for a safe unclut-_ that MWEB successfully repels 5,000 attacks a day. tered inbox Andre Joubert, general manager of MWEB Business, emphasized that only ADSL authentica- 368 Part Two Information Technology Infrastructure Sources: "2010 MyBroadband Awards: The Winners and Losers," MyBroadband, October 19, 2010, http://mybroadband.co.za/ CASESTUDY QUESTIONS 1. What technology issues led to the security breach at MWEB? 3. If you were an MWEB customer, would you con- 2. What is the possible business impact of this secusider MWEB's response to the security breach to rity breach for both MWEB and its customers? be acceptable? Why or why not? 4. What should MWEB do in the future to avoid similar incidents