STE WILLIAMS

Analysis The British government’s Cyber Security Strategy is giving the intelligence agencies a greater role than ever in defending business and the public against internet threats.

The policy, released by the Cabinet Office on Friday, sketches a detailed framework on how the government aims to organise law enforcement efforts and improve the education of netizens on information security risks. At the same time the policy aims to support online businesses, estimated to account for six per cent of the UK economy.

Information security firms broadly back the policy even though some questioned the central role of GCHQ, the signals intelligence agency, and a depiction of the threat landscape that seems to paint cyberwar-style threats (think Stuxnet and cyber-espionage) as more a pressing concern than everyday cybercrime risks, at least if budget allocations are any guide.

Show me the money

The government budgeted £650m over the next four years on improved cyber-security, after ranking cyberspace attacks as a tier-one priority for national security, on the same par as terrorist attacks, in last year’s Strategic Defence and Security Review.

The lion’s share of the cyber-security budget – £383m or 59 per cent – goes to the “Single Intelligence Account”. The account will fund the cyber-security activities of Britain’s intelligence community: MI5, MI6 and GCHQ. The majority of this huge investment will help the UK detect and counter cyber-attacks, and most will go to GCHQ in Cheltenham, but the details of how this will work remain classified.

One of the most controversial aspects of the strategy calls for private sector firms to work more closely with specialists at GCHQ, establishing an information sharing hub at Cheltenham.

Fifteen key firms, including Barclays, BT, Vodafone and Centrica, have been working to develop a pilot information sharing scheme with GCHQ, which will begin in earnest in December. GCHQ will act as a clearing house for information, sharing it with other private sector organisations.

Spooks eye up the private sector

There are also plans for GCHQ to offer some of the technologies that it has developed in-house to private sector firms. The establishment of a venture capital arm to the signal’s intelligence agency, along the same lines as the CIA’s In-Q-Tel, to stimulate the creation of cyber-security startups in the UK is also under consideration. GCHQ will not however become a commercial business, the government stresses.

“GCHQ is home to world-class expertise in cyber security,” a government statement explains. “The government will explore ways in which that expertise can more directly benefit economic growth and support the development of the UK cyber-security sector without compromising the agency’s core security and intelligence mission.”

David Harley, senior research fellow at ESET, expressed disquiet at the central role occupied by GCHQ in the strategy.

“I’m slightly concerned that if the view of the threat landscape is too cyberwarfare/GCHQ-dominated, it may not always work to the best advantage of the private sector and home users, whose priorities and assumptions may be very different,” Harley said.

“However, there have to be benefits from the involvement of security agencies with undoubted expertise in specialist contexts.”

Frank Coggrave, general manager of EMEA at computer forensics software firm Guidance Software, questioned whether firms would be keen to share commercially sensitive security information for the common good, even with GCHQ, whose core business involves keeping secrets.

“The sensitive commercial implications of knowledge sharing need to be carefully thought out,” Coggrave said. “Many organisations simply do not want to share their secrets, so as not to compromise competitive advantage.”

The Home Office was allocated 10 per cent of this budget (or £65m), while the Ministry of Defence gets 14 per cent (£91m) and the government keeps 10 per cent to build secure online services. However the Department of Business gets just 2 per cent (£13m), earmarked on working with the private sector to improve resilience, a lot less than the five per cent (£32.5m) allocated to the Cabinet Office to co-ordinate internet security initiatives.

Share and enjoy

The strategy outlined on Friday has several aims including bolstering co-operation with the private sector in the fight against cybercrime, improving the organisation of computer crime-fighting authorities and investing in improved cyber-security defences as well as educating the public about internet security risks.

Minister for cyber-security Francis Maude said: “This strategy sets out how we will realise the full benefits of a networked world by building a more trusted and resilient digital environment, from protecting the public from online fraud to securing critical infrastructure against cyber attacks.

“The government cannot do this alone. Closer partnership between the public and private sector is crucial. The strategy heralds a new era of unprecedented cooperation between the government and industry on cyber-security, working hand in hand to make the UK one of the most secure places in the world to do business.”

Sharing of threat intelligence is central to the greater collaboration between public and private sector that the government would like to see. But, as net security firm Sophos notes, private sector businesses would be keen to see this become more of a two-process where government shares information with them as well as the other way around.

“Co-operation needs to be more than annual conferences, and suited executives sitting around large tables talking about the issues. It needs to be a real-time, meaningful exchange of data which can help businesses and organisations defend against emerging threats,” Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at Sophos, writes.

Next page: Cyber-weapons to defend the nation

Article source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/28/cyber_security_strategy_analysis/

Older Australians, it seems, have better sense than people think: concerns about Internet security is crimping their enthusiasm for getting online, so the government is launching an inquiry.

The parliament’s Joint Select Committee on Cyber-Safety says it’s going to run the inquiry between now and 17 February 2012, in response to the way that “fears about privacy and security prevent too many older Australians from participating in the digital economy”, it says in a statement.

This is in spite of the older demographic representing the fastest-growing demographic of Internet users in this country. The committee has been briefed to investigate ways to reduce risks and enhance consumer protection.

In what could be the most admirably brief terms of reference ever offered to a parliamentary inquiry, the committee is to look at:

a. The nature, prevalence and level of cybersafety risks and threats experienced by senior Australians;

b. The impact and implications of those risks and threats on access and use of information and communication technologies by senior Australians;

c. The adequacy and effectiveness of current government and industry initiatives to respond to those threats, including education initiatives aimed at senior Australians;

d. Best practice safeguards, and any possible changes to Australian law, policy or practice that will strengthen the cybersafety of senior Australians.

Of course, it only needs a few years’ delay in implementing whatever the final report recommends, and the aging of today’s computer-using boomers will revise the over-65 demographic’s attitude to the Internet without any government help … ®

Article source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/28/fogies_fear_phishers/

The Anonymous hacking collective’s AntiSec group has launched a fresh assault on law enforcement agencies with the release of what they claim are personal emails stolen from a Californian cybercrime investigator.

The cache of emails – which according to AntiSec are from the account of Fred Baclagan, a retired special agent supervisor of the Californian Department of Justice – includes 30,000 emails detailing various computer forensic techniques and cybercrime investigation protocols.

The hacktivists claim to have hacked into Baclagan’s Gmail account and to have accessed his voicemails and SMS message logs using unspecified techniques as part of their ongoing campaign against law enforcement officials and their “allies” in the computer security industry.

The email dump, released as a torrent last Friday in part of what has become the group’s regular FuckFBIFriday release, is also said to contain personal information including Baclagan’s home address and phone number.

“Possibly the most interesting content in his emails are the IACIS.com* internal email list archives (2005-2011), which detail the methods and tactics cybercrime units use to gather electronic evidence, conduct investigations and make arrests,” a member of Anonymous said on a statement accompanying the release, adding that knowledge of these techniques will help hacktivists to develop better tradecraft and anti-forensic techniques.

“There are discussions about using EnCase forensic software, attempts to crack TrueCrypt encrypted drives, sniffing wireless traffic in mobile surveillance vehicles, how to best prepare search warrants and subpoenas, and a whole lot of clueless people asking questions on how to use basic software like FTP. In the end, we rickrolled the entire IACIS list, causing the administrators to panic and shut their list and websites down.

But Baclagan told the Huffington Post that he was nobody special in the Justice Department … which is what he would say, of course. He said that he had specialised in identity theft before he retired last year. “I’m really just a nobody,” he told the Post, “just a local investigator, not involved in anything dynamic or dramatic. ®

Bootnote

*IACIS is the International Association of Computer investigative Specialists, an volunteer-led non-profit organisation made up of law enforcement pros and geared towards developing and etching best practice in computer forensics.

Article source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/25/anon_cybercrime_investigator_leak/

Dixons Retail has issued a grovelling apology after a demon fondleslab possessed with porn beamed smut directly into the eyes of children at a Currys store in Surrey.

According to a report in the Surrey Comet, a distressed mother, who asked to remain nameless, said her three children were confronted with the filth on entering the store in New Malden before she could avert their gaze.

“They were only 10 seconds ahead so I was there within a click of a finger, but they were on the iPad, which was sitting there fully loaded with hardcore porn.

“You are not talking soft but the most disgusting images. There were maybe 20 images loaded and flashing and changing. It took me a minute to even realise what I was looking at,” she told the paper.

The mother, whose kids range from toddler to teen, left the store without an iPad for Xmas and confessed to crying for days after the incident.

She said her youngest still remembers the grot and “laughs”, so you can bet your last penny that the teen has it ingrained in memory too.

The appearance of the porn, according to Currys, was due to a breakdown in the store’s internet blacklisting systems, which block shoppers from surfing dodgy sex sites or other illicit or illegal material online, a spokesman told The Reg.

“We would like to apologise to the customer for the incident that should not have happened but was the result of a system failure, which has been investigated and is currently being corrected.

“Our network provider has acknowledged the issue in this store and is taking immediate steps to resolve it with the device and improve the monitoring to make sure this type of issue is picked up sooner before it impacts customers.” ®

Article source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/25/ipad_pron/

Fraudsters and hackers could soon get slapped with social media bans as the government plans to encourage judges to dish out online punishments for online crime. The online tagging system is one of several recommendations announced today in the 2011 Cyber Security Strategy.

Intended to protect Britain and Britain’s web business from the effects of cyber-crime, other plans in the report include getting spooks to warn UK consumers to update their anti-virus software on Facebook, and a focus on giving IT training to police.

Outlining the opportunities and also the dangers of the internet – particularly for UK online retail – the report advocates a programme of education and training to make everyone safer online. The government intends to leverage the cybersecurity knowledge it has in spy and intelligence central, GCHQ. It is not telling us about the other stuff it’s doing as it’s a secret.

Crim-slapping

Criminals who commit online crimes will be more likely to receive online sentences – as well as meatspace ones – as judges are encouraged to make use of laws that allow them to restrict or monitor the use of computers by convicted criminals outside prison. Internet fraudsters could be prevented from selling things online, the document suggests. People convicted of sexual offences, harassment or anti-social behaviour could have their internet access restricted to protect the public.

The idea will work like a cyber-version of the tags that criminals are given in the physical world. They explain:

The Ministry of Justice and the Home Office will consider and scope the development of a new way of enforcing these orders, using ‘cyber-tags’, which are triggered by the offender breaching the conditions that have been put on their internet use, and which will automatically inform the police or probation service. If the approach shows promise we will look at expanding cyber-sanctions to a wider group of offenders

Cyber-hygiene tips from the government

The document suggests that new routines of “cyber hygiene” could prevent 80 per cent of the current cyber crimes that affect businesses and the general public. And they’d like to deliver the new hygiene tips to us over social media.

“By 2015 we want a UK where [..] individuals are wary of email attachments or links from unrecognised senders,” says the document. The government wants people to know that they need to update their operating systems and virus software. Specialists from GCHQ – the UK’s intelligence and spy service – as well as private companies such as Microsoft and HSBC, will collaborate on the advice, which they then hope to spread to the general public via the medium of Facebook.

The report says that social media is one of the best ways to warn people about scams. One of their aims is to “help consumers respond to the cyber threats that will be the ‘new normal’ by using social media to warn people about scams or other online threats.”

PC Plods get an e-makeover

And, finally, police constables will have to up their game too and get to grips with this new world of technology. Embedded “cyber-specials” will be providing training. A cross-departmental body – the new National Crime Agency (NCA) – will pool existing specialists in cybercrime and farm them out across other government departments as needed. The government plans to create a public-private cybersecurity hub leveraging the knowledge of their spooks in GCHQ for the benefit of the wider economy.

In general, the government wants to grow the number of IT security people – or the “cadre of cyber security professionals” as they like to call them – and plan to introduce a new certificate scheme to to accredit the sector and maintain standards.

Both Minister for Cyber Security Francis Maude and Prime Minister David Cameron affirmed that they were committed to the freedom of the internet and welcomed the boom it had brought to UK business. Maude said:

“The growth of the internet has revolutionised our everyday lives and promises untold economic and social opportunities in years to come. This strategy sets out how we will realise the full benefits of a networked world by building a more trusted and resilient digital environment, from protecting the public from online fraud to securing critical infrastructure against cyber attacks.” ®

Read 2011’s Cyber Security Strategy (PDF)

Article source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/25/cyber_security_strategy/

Google made secure search the default option for logged in users last month – primarily for privacy protection reasons. But the move has had the beneficial side-effect of making life for difficult for fraudsters seeking to manipulate search engine rankings in order to promote scam sites, according to security researchers.

Users signed into Google were offered the ability to send search queries over secure (https) connections last month. This meant that search queries sent while using insecure networks, such as Wi-Fi hotspots, are no longer visible (and easily captured) by other users on the same network.

However Google also made a second (under-reported) change last month by omitting the search terms used to reach websites from the HTTP referrer header, where secure search is used. The approach means it has become harder for legitimate websites to see the search terms surfers fed through Google before reaching their website, making it harder for site to optimise or tune their content without using Google’s analytics service.

But the change in the referrer header makes life proportionately much more difficult for black hat SEO operators, who commonly use link farms and other tactics in an attempt to manipulate search results so that links to scareware portals appear prominently in the search results for newsworthy searches. Surfers who stray onto these sites will be warned of non-existent security problems in a bid to coax them into paying for fake anti-virus software of little or no utility.

Black hats thwarted

Fraudsters normally set up multiple routes through to scam sites. The changes introduced by Google when it launched secure search will leave them clueless about which approaches are bringing in prospective marks and which have failed. David Sancho, a senior threat researcher at Trend Micro, explains that it is very useful for black hat SEO-promoted sites to know which search term they have successfully hijacked, information that Google’s changes denies them.

“When these sites receive visits from search engine visitors, they will have no idea what search sent them there,” Sancho writes. “They won’t have a clear idea which search terms work and which don’t, so they are essentially in the dark. This can have a lot of impact on the effectiveness of their poisoning activities. This is, of course, good for Google as their search lists are cleaner but it’s also good for all users because they’ll be less likely to click on bad links from Google.”

Regular no-padlock HTTP searches remain unaltered. Search terms are only concealed where secure search is applied, which means surfers are already logged in to Google’s services.

“Given how many people already use Google Mail and Google+, this may not be such a big obstacle – but it still poses one,” Sancho explains. “If people keep using regular no-padlock HTTP searches, they will keep disclosing their search terms and keeping things unchanged.”

“The more people use HTTPS, the less information we’re giving the bad guys … one more reason to use secure connections to do your web searching,” he concludes.

Google introduced encrypted search last year but changes that came in last month that make it a default option for logged-in users will inevitably mean that it becomes more widely used, rather than the preserve of security-aware users who are unlikely to fall victim to scareware scams in the first place. ®

Article source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/25/google_secure_search/

Surrey county council has launched a website which brings together a wide range of information on the area.

Named Surrey-i, the local authority said that the website will provide residents with data on issues such as roads covered by gritting trucks in severe winter weather, care homes offering places for the elderly and crime rates on local streets.

Peter Martin, deputy leader of the council, told GGC that the local authority holds large amounts of information and that it was right to share it with residents.

“It’s all about transparency. We want to make as much information available to the public as they want. So for example, if you’ve just moved to Surrey you’ll be able to see where the nearest schools are and so on,” he said. “In a sense it’s like a Wikipedia for Surrey.”

The website has a built-in map, and by entering their postcode residents can find services and facilities in their community. These include the nearest schools and libraries, as well as information on local doctors, hospitals, charities and councillors. Other features will allow people to find their closest railway station, bus stop, dentist or beauty spot.

The site was soft launched in September on a restricted basis, but is now fully available to everyone. Martin said that the project is ongoing and will continue to evolve. He revealed that if there is an appetite for it, people may be able to have the service as an app on their mobile phones in future.

“But we’re just at the experimental stage at the moment, so we’ll monitor and track what people say about the service,” he added.

Martin said that people trying to provide services in the area will also find the tool useful as there will be data for businesses to access, such as workforce skills, the county’s economic performance and the success start-ups.

The site was developed by the council on behalf of the Surrey strategic partnership, which includes the local authority, borough and district councils, the Surrey County Association of Parish Town Councils, Surrey police, NHS Surrey and the voluntary and business sectors. As part of the launch, the council is also tweeting a fact an hour from the website during this week.

Surrey council said that other public bodies like the health service and police are already using the website to help them plan more integrated services and target their resources better. The council is currently using the website as part of a review of buildings which aims to make sure they continue to be in the right location to provide the best services for residents.

This article was originally published at Guardian Government Computing.

Guardian Government Computing is a business division of Guardian Professional, and covers the latest news and analysis of public sector technology. For updates on public sector IT, join the Government Computing Network here.

Article source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/25/surrey_data_dump/

It’s Thanksgiving again, the time of year when denizens of our former American colonies – alas, still in a distressingly successful and prolonged state of rebellion against their rightful sovereign – like to assemble as families and fortify themselves for a punishing day of shopping by scoffing a mountain of tuck while watching men in protective equipment running into one another on TV.

Refreshed, all true Americans then head out today and splurge any cash or credit they have left (after buying all the food) in a Black Friday bargain-binge consumer orgy. This practice, like many another, has now reached our shores in a small way. In this case we at Vulture Central are minded to surf the zeitgeist and accept something of an American theme this weekend – and, as we established last year, nothing seems to us more American in spirit than a celebration of personal weapons.

We’re taking no particular stance here on whether the right to bear arms is a good thing or a bad one: nor on whether guns are more dangerous to their owners or their families than to possible domestic intruders, nor on the relative dangers attendant on having guns in the home compared to having swimming pools, patio gas, powered gardening implements, members of one’s beloved extended family etc. Nor are we going to get sucked into the possibly even more acrimonious debate over just what kind of gun – in particular what kind of handgun – is best in a gunfight. (The .45ACP-vs-the-rest debate has already played out at great length in our comments pages. It seems likely that we might, again, get some people doubting that any Limey journo wiener could possibly know anything of guns or weapons, so your correspondent’s death-tech CV is attached at the end of this piece.)

We’re choosing to see personal shooters as an American thing partly because the USA – at least according to these guys – has the highest number of privately-owned guns per head of population in the world*. Also, of the world’s major powers it is the only one whose recorded history has been played out only in the era of firearms. The other big hitters – Russia, China, Japan, the heftier European nations etc – have all seen much of their histories punctuated by the clash of steel and twang of bowstrings rather than gunshots, but America went straight from stone axes to muskets. There have been no samurai swordsmen, no knights in shining armour, no apple-shooting crossbow artists, no warrior monks or legionaries or longbowmen in US or colonial history. Rather, America has had its “minute men” with their flintlocks, its sixgun-packing western pistol fighters, its cops and robbers tooled up with Tommy guns (and even full-blown machine guns, on occasion**).

This being the Reg we generally prefer a bit of a tech angle – that is, where there are no obvious Paris Hilton implications to a story – and so it is that today we are again featuring only futuristic, unusual, high-tech weapons. You’ll find no everyday lead-spitters here. Needless to say, heavy ordnance which can only be used from a fixed mount or a vehicle or which requires a crew of more than one is out too: weapons which can only be deployed by large organised groups are surely for the guvmint – the very people who might seek to pry one’s trusty shooting iron from one’s cold dead fingers – not for proud, freedom-loving individualists fixin’ to defend their remote wilderness compounds.

Thus we have once again limited ourselves to weapons suitable for individual carry, and to make it sporting we have included only those which actually exist or genuinely appear likely to shortly. Again in the interests of fair play with our readers, this year we have a completely new line-up: none of last year’s hardware is back for a repeat appearance.

So, without further ado, let’s get on to the weapons.

*This is not a good guide to the percentage of Americans who are tooled up as in many cases one American will own several – or indeed, many – guns. It seems likely that a higher proportion of Swiss people have a gun in their house, for instance, as large numbers of Swiss men keep weapons at home in their role as military reservists.

**The Browning Automatic Rifle was carried by both sides in the ambush which ended the careers – and the lives – of Bonnie and Clyde. The BAR would generally be seen as a light machine-gun (or squad automatic weapon, in US parlance) being intended for use by a single person. It was used as such by US troops right up until the Korean War. One might note, though, that it fires full-fat rifle ammo, a thing which makes it seem in some ways more like a heavier general-purpose or medium machine gun. It was marketed to civilian customers between the wars as a “machine rifle”, a term which may be familiar to some Reg readers from the scientifiction works of E E “Doc” Smith (for instance it appears in the Lensman books).

Next page: The Pringles-tube Robot Kamikaze Assassin Drone

Article source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/25/thanksgiving_future_guns_ii/

An inquiry into computer hacking by the UK media resulted in the arrest of its first suspect, a 52-year-old from Milton Keynes.

The as-yet-unidentified middle-aged man was arrested on Thursday morning by officers from Scotland Yard as part of Operation Tuleta, an investigation into computer hacking by the press that is running parallel to other inquiries. These include unrelated phone voicemail interception investigations and an investigation into alleged tip-off payments to the police. The suspect was taken to a Thames Valley police station for questioning over alleged computer misuse offences.

“Operation Tuleta is investigating a number of allegations regarding breach of privacy, received by the Met since January 2011, which fell outside the remit of Operation Weeting, including computer hacking,” a Scotland Yard statement explained.

Previously arrests of media executives and journalists, mostly individuals who worked for the now defunct News of the World, were made by officers from Operation Weeting – investigating mobile phone voicemail hacking – and Operation Elveden, an investigation into payments to the police by the media. ®

Article source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/24/media_computer_hacking_arrest/

The Royal Mail’s electronic redirection website was finally restored on Thursday, days after problems affected the postal service’s website on Sunday.

A Register reader has come forward with evidence to show that he was presented with the personal details of another user when he logged into the redirection site on Saturday, hours before the service interruption.

We asked Royal Mail if it had any explanation for this and, in particular, whether the site had been taken down as a security precaution. It responded by requesting to speak to the source, asking for more information on the incident. We’ve forwarded this request to our reader, Andy, who has forwarded a partially blurred image of someone else’s personal details he was confronted with when he put his name and address into the site in an attempt to arrange the redelivery of a package online last weekend.

“Whilst attempting to arrange a re-direct on the Royal Mail website last night [Saturday], I was presented with somebody else’s personal details regarding their own delivery package,” our source, Andy, explained.

“Since then the website redelivery pages have been unavailable.”

Details made available included the name, contact details and address of the person requesting the redirection of an item of recorded mail (something that needs the signature of a recipient for delivery). It did not include credit card or other financial information. Andy was presented these details when he put in his own name, house number and postcode into the site. He didn’t enter a tracking number before he was presented with the personal details of another person.

Andy got in touch with the individual involved who said that he too had seen other peoples’ contact details when he logged into the website. Andrew complained to Royal Mail on Tuesday, only to receive what he felt was an inadequate response. “I managed to speak with Royal Mail customer services yesterday and they apologised but did not seem to be too worried that other people’s personal details were being exposed on their site,” he told El Reg.

It’s unclear at the time of writing if this is a one-off glitch or a more widespread problem.

Rik Ferguson, a security consultant at Trend Micro, said that without further details it was impossible to say what had happened but the reported glitch is symptomatic of a cross-referencing issue with the Royal Mail’s database.

Andy is considering whether or not to report the matter to data privacy watchdogs at the Information Commissioner’s Office, a decision that he said depends on whether he gets an adequate response from Royal Mail.

A large number of the Royal Mail’s web properties, not just the redirection site, experienced service problems this week. A Royal Mail spokesman forwarded us a statement issued to customers (below) apologising for the service interruptions, which it blames on teething problems involving the migration to a new platform. It said the online postage and SmartStamp applications are working again, albeit not at full capacity, while the online redelivery and redirection booking services, at the centre of Andy’s problems, remains unavailable.

The message represented the state of play on Wednesday evening but by Thursday mid-morning Royal Mail’s electronic redelivery service had been restored. While the service was down customers were obliged to phone up to have items of post redelivered, rather than using the online facility, which prior to Thursday had been unavailable for four days. ®

Dear Customer,

I am posting this note to say how very sorry we all are at Royal Mail if you have had difficulties accessing some of the applications on our website. I understand the inconvenience this will have caused in recent days.

The problems some customers have experienced follow technical difficulties that arose after the migration of part of our website to a new platform. As soon as we identified the problem, a message was put on our home page explaining what was happening and we will continue to update this to keep you informed.

Do please rest assured my team and I are working very hard to resolve the problem as quickly as possible. I would be the first to acknowledge that it has taken us longer than we would have liked to find a solution.  I can share with you that our Online Postage and SmartStamp applications are working again. We are gradually increasing the capacity of these applications as we resume normal service, so you may find that you are unable to access these applications first time. If you are not able to access the application first time, I would ask you to please try again a few minutes later.

Unfortunately, there are a number of applications that remain unavailable, including our online redelivery and Redirection booking services. Customers can arrange a Redirection by calling 0800 085 2724. Customers with other enquiries, including arranging a redelivery, should contact us in the normal way on 08457 740 740.

We continue to work around the clock to make sure your service is restored as quickly as possible.

Please again accept my sincere apologies for the disruption. We will continue to update you on our progress as we resolve it.

Yours sincerely

Nick Landon Director of Customer Experience

®

Article source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/24/royal_mail_redirection_site_screwup/