Spam Attack Cripples WorldNet Servers

AT&T WorldNet's servers are under seige in a spam attack that has essentially kept customers from sending and receiving e-mails since Monday morning.

by Jim Wagner of internetnews.com [February 20, 2002]

According to Janet Wyles, WorldNet spokesperson, e-mail delays started Sunday mid-morning, the result of spam from e-mail servers around the world flooding and overcoming WorldNet's e-mail servers' ability to process the digital traffic.

"Our people have been working literally around the clock to resolve this," Wyles said. "No e-mail has been lost, it's only been delayed, and we expect it to get caught up by mid-day today."

AT&T WorldNet had 1.4 million subscribers, as of Dec. 31.

Customers can still send their e-mails out, though the problem is they will join the growing queue of e-mails waiting to get transferred through WorldNet's e-mail servers.

Wyles said some customers have been unaffected by the slowdown, depending on the particular WorldNet e-mail server they are using.

WorldNet technicians say the problem is attributable to spam messages, from numerous points of entry (meaning different e-mail servers around the world), that are flooding their e-mail servers.

Whether this is an intentional attack or just the result of a particularly eager spammer remains to be seen. Wyles said technicians are still looking into the origins of the e-mails and won't make a determination just yet on the likely cause.

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