A wide-ranging review of Telecom's outsourced email service could result in provider Yahoo! being dumped.
Telecom said on Tuesday that its Yahoo! Xtra service has been attacked twice: once in a phishing scam and a second scam that prompts customers to inadvertently send emails to third parties with potentially corrupting messages.
The company outsourced Xtra to service provider Yahoo! in 2007.
Telecom retail chief executive Chris Quin told Radio New Zealand's Checkpoint programme the review would assess all options and he would not rule out dumping Yahoo! and bringing the service back in-house.
"We've looked back over the last few months and the experience our customers have is not satisfactory. We're not happy about it, so it's important we now do a full review with our own business and customers and with Yahoo! to see what is the appropriate step forward.
"I don't know what the answer to that review will be yet, but I wanted to communicate to our customers that we're committed about addressing this seriously this time."
Mr Quin said the company plans to report back with the review's findings by the end of March.
Telecom says it is hard to know how many email accounts have been affected. All Yahoo! Xtra email customers should reset email passwords immediately and never click on links contained within suspicious emails, it advised.
However, Paul Brislen, a spokesperson for the Telecommunications Users Association, said people following that advice might never know what risks they were running.
"You just don't know payload, what the nastiness is behind these links. Most people got the email, there's just simply a link to a website in there. They haven't clicked on it - and that's a good thing.
"There's always a next time with technology isn't there, so you always do have to keep one eye open and aware of this kind of activity."
Computer expert Daniel Ayers told Radio New Zealand's Nine to Noon programme on Tuesday that Telecom has not provided customers with enough information.
Mr Ayers said he was aware of this problem weeks ago and is disappointed that Telecom was not.
