[vlan0]

>Cox's support organization was presented with a compromised device being handed to them by an infosec professional, and they couldn't handle it effectively at all.

I can't really blame them. The number of customers able to qualify that a device has actually been hacked is nearly zero. But do you know how many naive users out there that will call/visit because they think they've been hacked? It's unfortunately larger than the former. And that'll cost the business money. When 99.9% of those cases, the user is wrong. They have not been hacked. I say this as someone who supported home users in the 2000s. Home users that often think they'd been "hacked".

[oxide]

I work for a support org for a traditional telco. We have "contacts" but they're effectively middlemen.

If you dropped this in my lap, and I'm pretty savvy for a layman, I wouldn't know how to get past my single channel. I think it would require convincing the gatekeeper.

[protocolture]

I used to run a small telco noc and if any of my guys sat on something like this rather than reporting it to me I would have turfed them.

Especially because both of the ISPs we supported insisted on using a lot of dodgy CPE.

[chemmail]

They probably get someone in asking to change it because someone on LOL say they just hacked their computer.

[hanniabu]

How many of those show up in person though?

[hackmiester]

Just the craziest, wrongest ones

[Shared404]

+1 to this. Dealt with the same in consumer PC repair.

[doubled112]

This was my experience too.

Some people truly believe the computer is hacked every time there is behaviour they didn't expect. Only the craziest, least capable ones show up to scream at you like you caused the whole thing.

[hollander]

That is the problem. He should have contacted them like he did the second time. When he went into their shop, it all depended on that particular employee, and you can't blame that person for not recognizing the issue.

[someguydave]

yeah the false positive problem is huge here. For every legitimate security professional there are probably 10-100 schizos who believe they are “hacked”

[marshray]

I was mentioned in the media once for an unrelated internet protocol vulnerability and I had people contacting me about their "hacked" internet connections.

For a major cable ISP, I can't imagine how many customers walk in to replace their "hacked" boxes on a daily basis.