back to article TalkTalk admits losing £60m and 101,000 customers after THAT hack

TalkTalk has reported a loss of £60m related to its major hack in October, attributing the write-off to IT costs and shedding 101,000 customers during its third quarter. The biz said the costs of restoring its online capability and enhancing security are expected to total £40m-£45m. It also took a £15m hit "arising from Q3 …

  1. Andy Non Silver badge
    FAIL

    Do. no. want.

    Now they've taken to sending junk mail leaflets promoting their free broadband service. Couldn't help laughing as it tumbled into the bin.

    1. ad47uk

      Re: Do. no. want.

      I have had nothing from Talk Talk for months, even before the hack I would not touch Talk Talk with a barge pole, so nothing they say or do will make any difference.

  2. djstardust

    The amazing thing

    Is that Dido Harding is still there.

    It was a monumental clusterfuck that has cost the company dearly, but the woman at the top just speaks BS and gets away with it.

    Just shows the CEOs of these big companies are pretty much untouchable whilst the staff and customers both suffer.

    1. Adrian Smart

      Re: The amazing thing

      You're forgetting that Call-Me-Dave is one of her best mates. That lot think they can get away with anything, and frankly, for the time being, it seems they're right...

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: The amazing thing

        "You're forgetting that Call-Me-Dave is one of her best mates."

        Irrelevant. The problem is that nobody in the media is prepared to go for the jugular. She shouldn't have been able to get through that first morning's media interviews without every single one challenging her on the point that she was CEO yesterday and is still CEO this morning. Especially with the recent precedent of the CEO of VW having quit: "Baroness Harding, Herr Winterkorn did the honourable thing. Why haven't you?"

        It's at times like this that Robin Day is so sorely missed.

    2. Grubby

      Re: The amazing thing

      She's not there because of her abilities, she's there because of her contacts. Mates with Dave and co, very, very close ties to Google and Sky execs (suspiciously close when you think about the huge conflict of interests it could potentially create).

      I would imagine her interview went something like:

      What do you think you can offer TalkTalk?

      Access to my phone book.

      When can you start?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    £60m

    should have kept those IT guys, I suppose.

    p.s. did I hear "price increase" on talktalk services recently?

    1. AMBxx Silver badge

      Re: £60m

      If users are daft enough to stay with TalkTalk, they're certainly daft enough to put up with price increases.

      Looking at BT's latest results, it looks like they've all gone to BT. Out of the frying pan...

      1. Known Hero

        Re: £60m

        While BT is no where near perfect, it is the best average consumer Broadband your going to get in most places, this discludes specialist high speed consumer broadband.

        Broadband providers are a little like goverment, All of them aer shit, you just pick the best of the worst :(

        1. dajames

          You're joking, Shirley?

          While BT is no where near perfect, it is the best average consumer Broadband your going to get in most places, this discludes specialist high speed consumer broadband.

          That statement is somewhat at odds with the impression one might gain from actual consumer experience, available from the likes of thinkbroadband.com.

          This comparison of five of the biggest players in the consumer broadband market shows that even BT's subsidiary Plusnet score more highly than btinternet on all counts.

          Higher ratings still are available once one 'undiscludes' the ISPs that actually have a clue ...

          1. Known Hero

            Re: You're joking, Shirley?

            I will admit I have heard good things about Plusnet, and so recommended them to my uncle. Unfortunately in this case he suffers from massive packet loss, but due to the fact they see he can achieve downloads they refuse to look at the line .... the phone line also experienced issues where no calls could be made, the openreach engineer also stated that he could see issue's on the line (broadband) and put that in his notes but was unable to do anything as he was phone division, but alas nothing has been done.

            I'm not sure how Virgin get such high scores with such aggressive packet shaping, Just the other night my mate (in Worthing) was trying to stream my twitch stream (8:30pm) to check out a new game, constant buffering so I lowered my quality down to 480p, still wouldn't play. He switched to steam streaming and got 1080p fine. couple of other mates tested it, Virgin (up north somewhere) had buffering issues as well. but any BT users could view the stream fine. I still remember a few years back mates not downloading updates till after 8:30pm because Virgin would just kill their connection (not completely) after (I think it was 4gig during the day (very hazy about the conditions)). Yeah you can defend this with, Who needs this much data blah blah blah, I tend to churn through over 250G down and 90up over a few days, so me for one.

            TLDR, Regardless if Virgin have the capacity, They are going to limit services they don't think are important when they feel like it.

        2. djstardust

          Re: £60m

          I would have probably agreed but now the whole of BT has gone titsup. Karma.

          1. Known Hero
            Thumb Up

            Re: £60m

            Something about legal practice and Sod's

            *wanders off muttering !!!!

        3. julian abbs
          Alien

          Re: £60m

          "You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"

          "No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."

          "Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."

          "I did," said Ford. "It is."

          "So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"

          "It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."

          "You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"

          "Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."

          "But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"

          "Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"

          1. Known Hero
            Thumb Up

            Re: £60m

            @julian

            An upvote is just not enough for that post !! I must mention it to the entire world.

      2. ad47uk

        Re: £60m

        i am with plusnet, not sure if it was a good idea at the time as I was with a local Wireless company, but they seem ok so far, been with them for 11 months and to be honest that is the closest I want to get to BT. At least the call centre is in the UK.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    OK good. I worry that markets do not punish companies enough, because of consumer apathy.

    Still, the UK ISP market is becoming less competitive due to content bundling among others, and anyone offering "free" broadband must have bombs dropped on them.

  5. Thought About IT

    Funny way to say sorry

    According to an article in the Guardian, TalkTalk offered its 4 million customers a free mobile sim worth £5 a month to say sorry, and then charged for it!

    Only TalkTalk could charge for saying ‘sorry’.

    Having said that, my Internet connection is with TalkTalk Business, and I have no complaints about them.

  6. TRT Silver badge

    Do they also...

    admit to losing millions of emails over the last week as a result of some balls up where mail set to forward and don't store (a setting used by many people after last year's debacle where incoming email was delayed for days and days on end, causing many to abandon TalkTalk) didn't forward and didn't store?

    It's started working again now, presumably because the bit bucket overflowed.

  7. Fullbeem

    Job oppotunity at UoM

    If Dido is given the boot she will need to move fast an update her CV to apply for that gig at the University of Manchester.

    Old boys network etc.

  8. Phil Kingston

    I'm also shocked she's still in the job.

    How do I get one of these responsible for all operations of the company on massive salary but not actually accountable roles?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      > How do I get one of these responsible for all operations of the company on massive salary but not actually accountable roles?

      You need the patented Harding eight step plan!

      1. Get born into the aristocracy.

      2. Go to a posh school.

      3. Go to Oxford with the PM.

      4. Marry the PM's chum.

      5. Be made Baroness.

      7. Fail miserably at safeguarding the pleb's your customer's data.

      8. Profit!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        9. Be murdered come the glorious people's revolution.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          9. Be murdered come the glorious people's revolution.

          Sadly most of the revolutionaries were using cheap broadband fromTalkTalk to organize, and missed the revolution.

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        "You need the patented Harding eight step plan!"

        Far too elaborate. You need two steps:

        1. Have a supine board.

        2. Have supine media.

  9. Sir Sham Cad

    Free stuff

    Dog shit is free but I still don't want it in my house.

    I'm advising all friends and family to avoid TrashTalk like the plague even if they are cheap.

  10. Martin Summers Silver badge

    'Cyber attack' makes me cringe. Especially when the Chief Exec of an ISP is using the term. Should be no surprise really when she proved she hadn't got a clue what was going on at the time.

    1. sysconfig

      Indeed. I wonder what came out of the arrests of a bunch of youths in the aftermath of the "sophisticated cyber attack".

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Those stats are astonishing. 156k had details lost, 95k customers left because of it. And I expect more customers will leave when their minimum term ends. It seems the general public are waking up to data security.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      It has all been very quiet on the 'culprits'. Now that could just be a sub judice matter, but I suspect they will not be found to be the primary culprits. Unfortunately Talk-Shit will not be either

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ha ha ha ha ha

    wait ... how much did it hurt Dido Harding? Sequentially ...

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Math fail?

    How come 100k less users result in £20mil less in the next quarter? That's £200 per customer who the f**k is paying £66/month for TalkTalk

  14. alain williams Silver badge

    Doing security properly costs ....

    but is often cheaper than screwing up and having to pay the cost of the f**k up.

    The problem comes when a bean counter wants to know if a few £k can be shaved off some budget or a marketing manager wants something delivered a couple of weeks earlier - so security is not done properly. After all: you can have a system that appears to work well even if the security is paper thin.

    By the time the short cuts come to light: those guilty of forcing the change are forgotten, but just in case the universal 'hacker' bogey man is invoked/blamed.

    This is not just a Talk Talk problem. I recently saw some email from https://references.clearviewtr.co.uk/ to someone wanting to rent a house. Login details all in clear text, one email: URL, username, password - this is somewhere where a lot of financial data is entered (bank a/c details, home + work address, ...) just what you would want if you wanted to spoof someone. Management at clearview should be shot.

  15. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    "The biz said the costs of restoring its online capability and enhancing security are expected to total £40m-£45m."

    Really?

    1. Wommit

      @ Doctor Syntax

      £40m to £45m, yes, about right for enhanced security. Extra bodyguards, armour plated limousine, constant police guard on her house. Dildo needs protecting from a huge number of pissed off people.

  16. VulcanV5

    What is truly worrying is . . .

    . . . TalkTalk customers are allowed to vote. Why there can't be a sanity clause for electoral qualification is as depressing now as it was when Groucho mused on it.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If

    The TalkTalk network is setup anything like their shitty datacentre in Milton Keynes I wouldnt be suprised at that upgrade cost.

    I was there once during a downpour and the roof was gushing in!

    To be fair though they had plenty of buckets to catch the water in!

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like