Last week, several subscribers (see forum threads here and here) to DSL provider DSLExtreme posted to our forums stating that accounts had been "hacked," their service suddenly and mysteriously no longer worked, and that all their passwords had been changed. One user states their line was suddenly upgraded and services were added without their consent. When users initially called in to report these strange occurrences, they say they were given a bit of a runaround in getting the issues resolved.

ISP support initially told customers the mysterious line upgrades and cancellations were due to a computer glitch, with accounts "accidentally updated by an automated process on our end." Two days later the story had changed rather significantly, with DSLExtreme reps stating that the "isolated security concerns" experienced by some of the ISP's users were due to a "disgruntled employee."

According to the company, the employee was getting revenge for DSLExtreme's decision to shift some oversease outsourced support services back in house:Earlier this year DSLExtreme outsourced a significant amount of support work, firing a significant number of workers in their California and Utah offices. According to DSLExtreme, user credit card data was not accessed by this employee, but they are having all of the ISP's customers change their passwords for ISP services as a precautionary measure.