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PacNet <PCNTF.O> says SingTel scans "unfortunate"
By Karen Richardson
SINGAPORE, April 30 (Reuters) - Two Singapore Internet
service providers (ISPs) said on Friday they would not scan
customers' computers without telling them, with one saying
recent scanning by rival SingNet was unfortunate.
"We think it is a little unfortunate. We wouldn't do it
ourselves, but we don't think SingNet did the scanning out of
malice," Mark Chong, Pacific Internet <PCNTF.O> marketing
communications manager told Reuters.
"We all know what the public's reaction to this is. Of
course privacy is very important...I would tell my users if I
had to scan," Tan Tong Hai, general manager of Cyberway,
Singapore's smallest ISP with 50,000 subscribers, said.
Singapore's Straits Times newspaper reported on Friday that
SingNet, the Internet arm of Singapore Telecommunications
<TELE.SI> (SingTel), had scanned more than 200,000 of its
customers' computers for vulnerability to hacker attacks.
SingNet had not told customers about the scanning, which it
called a "value-added service," to avoid raising alarm.
But a customer whose computer detected the scan complained
to police, prompting SingTel's disclosure of its actions.
SingNet enlisted the help of the Home Affairs Ministry's
information technology security unit to start scanning in March
after the arrest of two boys who had hacked into 17 SingNet
customers' accounts, the paper said.
Officials at SingTel, 80 percent owned by the government,
were not immediately available for comment.
PacNet's Chong said his company, which has some 203,000
subscribers, has a strict security policy to protect privacy
and was unlikely to follow SingNet's reported scanning
practice.
"We have never scanned our subscribers computers and are
not likely to do so -- unless our subscribers explicity ask for
it," he said.
Cyberway's Tan said he would consult the Telecommunication
Authority of Singapore (TAS) and the Ministry of Home Affairs'
IT security unit in the event of hacking.
TAS, the regulator responsible for telecom infrastructure
and provision of services, said in a statement there had been
"no violation of any TAS rules or regulations in this
incident."
It said it considered security scanning against hacker
attacks was an operational responsibility of ISPs.
"(They) may, however, want to consider keeping their
customers informed in future," it added.
Both Chong and Tan said they tell customers about the
dangers of hacking programmes and prevention measures on their
websites.
Cyberway is owned by telecoms firm Starhub, which will
break SingTel's domestic public phone services monopoly when it
enters the market next April. PacNet is a unit of industrial
group, SembCorp Industries Ltd <SCIL.SI>.
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