The Yahoo Xtra email attack is worse than first feared, with Telecom canceling around 60,000 passwords in a desperate bid to halt the breach.

Asking customers to be patient, the telco is currently reacting to swamped call centres and inbound email queries as the problem spirals out of control.

“Our staff are doing their very best to get to calls as quickly as possible but the volume is significantly high," says Trish Keith, GM Customer Experience, Telecom.

"The quickest and easiest way for customers to take corrective action themselves is by going online and changing their password on both their computers and mobile devices.

“We’re asking customers that do need to call us, to be please be patient given the magnitude of this issue and the resulting high call volume.

"We’re hugely sorry for the inconvenience this situation is causing our customers and trying our best to assist them both through our call centres but also through email information and social media.”

The first of the problems started as early as Saturday February 9, but many users issued complaints at least a week beforehand.

"It's got to the stage were I'm seriously considering changing my internet provider," says Robert Williams, a Telecom customer.

"It's incredibly frustrating that the problem has not been sorted yet, despite many customers complaining of an attack as early as the first week of the month.

"Telecom have asked us to be patient but it has gone on too long now, they can't expect customers to just sit around and wait for them to pull their fingers out.

"I'm not even fearful of the security breach no more, just incredibly pissed off it has taken this long to resolve."

Telecom CEO of Retail Chris Quin was forced into a short statement this morning, insisting the company is making progress.

"We're making progress, and it's great that the last numbers I saw nearly 35,000 or so customers had reset their passwords.

"We need everyone to get through those so that we can make sure their accounts are safe.

"We accept the frustration and the hassle with this, and people worrying about the security issue.

"It's not unnatural for them to express those fears."

For more information regarding the password change requirement, click here

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