How To Report Service Abuse

Abuse reports can be sent in two different ways. If you are a customer then you should use the Help Assistant.

If you are not a PlusNet customer you won't have access to the Help Assistant, instead email abuse@plus.net

Either of these methods provide a safe, confidential method of reporting cases of abuse or potential vulnerability to us. Your report will be treated in the strictest confidence.

Reporting Email Abuse and Spamming
In order to investigate your report we must have the FULL headers of the spam email. Read our brief guide to accessing email headers from Outlook Express. If you are using a different client, check any online help for how to read message headers. Send header information as plain text, in the body of your email, rather than as an attachment.

Reporting Virus and Port Scanning
If your firewall logs show reports of other PlusNet customers port scanning, attempting to hack your PC or launching a Denial of Service attack against you, we need to determine whether or not these are affecting either the quality of service or the speed of your connection.

The number of reported intrusions is very high, and each attempt takes time to investigate. With this in mind, please report each 'serious' offender as a separate instance, instead of forwarding the full firewall log. With port scanning, if your firewall is reporting a few scans per hour, this should not cause concern - your firewall is protecting you. However, if it is 100 times a minute then should be reported immediately.

To see if this activity is affecting your connection take the PlusNet speed test - http://speedtest.plus.com

Remember, some of the intrusion alerts you receive are actually valid responses from servers you are accessing online. In this case the server tries to connect back to you to verify who you are.

Reporting Website Content
If you believe that a website held on our servers contains materials that may contravene copyright law or contains material that may be deemed to be obscene or otherwise illegal, you can report this to our Abuse Team via either the Help Assistant or, if you are not a customer, by emailing our abuse team directly, at abuse@plus.net

Reporting Security Vulnerability
If you wish to report a potential security issue or vulnerability of our network please notify our Abuse Team and they will take immediate steps to investigate this. Please use either the Help Assistant or, if you are not a customer, email our abuse team directly, at abuse@plus.net

What Happens Once I Have Made a Report?
Due to restrictions imposed by the Data Protection Act we are not able to provide much feedback. So, unless we require additional information, we are unlikely to contact you back in person. However, this doesn't mean we are ignoring your report. Please provide information in a clear and concise form, including appropriate URLs, firewall logs etc. This will help us complete our investigations much more quickly.

I've Been Contacted by The Abuse Team - What Next?
If you receive an email from us about abuse originating from your account there are a few things to bear in mind:

• If you are unsure what the problem is then use the Help Assistant. A member of our support team will be able to help you.

• If you need details of the report, (e.g. email headers from spam emails), please request this through Help Assistant, instead of replying to the email we sent you. This will speed things up for you.
• Remember, we want to get to the bottom of the problem and resolve it! If you have any questions then please get in touch, we'll be happy to work through the problem with you.
• Please treat any abuse cases seriously. If we see repeat offenders or see that people don't take action based on our emails we may have to take further action, to maintain the integrity of our network.

Return to Reporting Service Abuse.