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A report from the Telegraph suggests that UK hospitals and banks are more likely to be exposed to cyber-attacks because of “lazy” broadband engineers failing to complete paperwork
According to the article, the engineers are failing to disclose “when and where they are working on BT’s network”, leaving BT’s client companies unable to see who is accessing their critical network infrastructure. This, according to the Telegraph’s anonymous industry sources, is exposing companies to cyber-attacks and network sabotage.
The article points to various specific incidents, including a hospital and financial institution in London that were forced offline last October after a someone was found to have cut through a cable. Industry legislation, called “whereabouts” rules, requires engineers working on BT’s infrastructure to provide timing and location information in a timely manner. However, compliance with these rules has fallen to just 23%, according to BT figures seen by the Telegraph.
In particular, the report mentions CityFibre – arguably the UK’s largest ‘altnet’ and would-be challenger to BT’s market dominance – as having no whereabouts data included on more than half of their recorded jobs, as of the end of October last year.
“The recording of your contractor whereabouts when working on or in our network is important and necessary to enable us to ensure the integrity of our network and quickly identify if unauthorised personnel are accessing it,” said Openreach in a statement.
BT has called the compliance with the whereabouts rules “poor”, although, perhaps hypocritically, it does not disclose its own compliance rates.
While it seems fair to suggest that increased compliance to these ‘whereabouts’ rules is needed, linking broadband engineers to potential cyber-attacks is a slight overdramatization. Accidental damage to cable equipment, as well as theft and vandalism, is a common occurrence, none of which can really be called a targeted cyber-attack.
Nonetheless, until whereabouts compliance rates improve and are properly enforced, the network operators are left blind as to is working in their network.
Fibre broadband provider Vorboss’s CEO Tim Creswick suggested that the only way to guarantee compliance is to not use third-party contractors, ensuring accountability for compliance errors.
The fact that fibre rollout in the UK has accelerated enormously in recent years – and with that the appearance of over 100 altnets – could also be contributing to the overlooking of security measures, with more firms having been provided access to BT’s network than in previous years.
The Telegraph notes that BT is set to meet with industry representatives this week to discuss further compliance enforcement.
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