July 5, 2023
More than two weeks after the initial outage, some Virgin Media email users are still unable to access their inboxes. The problem, which was caused by a hardware failure, has had a significant impact on customers, some of whom have lost important emails and documents.
Virgin Media has apologized for the inconvenience and is working to restore all historic emails but admits that the process is taking longer than anticipated. However, the company has not given a specific timeline for when the issue will be resolved and assured users that their emails are “safe and secure.”
The situation has left many frustrated and concerned, especially those relying on their historic emails. Phil Westlake, a retired IT professional and former IT system designer for prominent UK companies, expressed doubts about the recovery of lost emails. He emphasized that disaster recovery plans in large organizations typically dictate swift resolutions, questioning why it is taking so long in this case.
According to Axel Wehrle, Virgin Media’s director of customer service, the email disruption stemmed from a hardware failure that overloaded the servers managing the mailbox platform. The prolonged problems have had severe consequences for customers.
The incident has been reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office, Virgin Media clarifies that it is not a data breach, and no user data or personal information has been compromised.
The sources for this piece include an article in BBC.
