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AT&T announced Friday that a massive data hack originally uncovered in April may have been worse than previously thought.
As a result of the data leak, the call and text logs of “almost all” mobile phone customers were disclosed.
“In April, AT&T learned that customer data was being illegally downloaded from our workplace to a third-party cloud platform,” the company said in a statement. “We launched an investigation and engaged leading cybersecurity experts to understand the nature and scope of the criminal activity. We have taken steps to close the illegal access point.”
The compromised data includes files containing AT&T recordings of calls and text messages from “almost all” AT&T wireless customers from May 1, 2022, to October 31, 2022. According to CNN, AT&T had 110 million wireless subscribers at the end of 2022.
The company said the data “does not include the content of calls or text messages, nor does it include personal information such as social security numbers, dates of birth, or other personally identifiable information.”
“At this time, we do not believe the data is publicly available,” AT&T said in the statement. “We are working with law enforcement to apprehend those involved in the incident. We have learned that at least one person has been arrested.”
Customers can visit att.com/DataIncident for more information.
[Original story below from 4/1/2024]Attention current and former AT&T customers.
The mobile phone and internet provider confirmed over the weekend that it had suffered a massive data theft, in which the personal data of an estimated 7.6 million current and 65.4 million former AT&T customers may have been stolen. In total, 73 million users were affected.
AT&T said the dataset was leaked to the dark web about two weeks ago. It is unclear whether the leak came from AT&T or a third party.
Related topics: “I want a free month”: Thousands of customers are angry with AT&T after widespread outages
Compromised data may include social security numbers, full names, phone numbers, AT&T account information (numbers and passwords), and email and mailing addresses.
“AT&T currently has no evidence of unauthorized access to its systems that would have resulted in the exfiltration of the data set. The company is proactively communicating with those affected and will provide credit monitoring at our expense where appropriate,” the company said in a press release. “To date, this incident has not had a material impact on AT&T's operations.”
The company also clarified that the data “appears” to come from accounts created in 2019 or earlier.
News of the leak was originally posted on X on March 17 by tech account @vx-underground, which claimed that “the stolen data is real” and had been leaked to darknet platform Breached.
Today, over 70,000,000 records from an unnamed division of AT&T were leaked to Breached. There is no information on whether this was a third-party attack or which “division” this data came from.
Regardless, after verification, we can confirm that the stolen data is legitimate.
— vx-underground (@vxunderground), March 17, 2024
Earlier this year, in February, AT&T experienced a mass outage that affected around 75% of the company's customers. CEO John Stankey confirmed that customers who were “most impacted” by the service interruption will receive a $5 credit to their account.
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“Moments like this are a test of our resilience,” Stankey wrote in an internal memo at the time. “This is not our first network outage and it won't be our last – unfortunately, that's the reality of our business. What matters most is how we respond, adapt and improve to deliver the service our customers need and expect.”
As of Monday morning, AT&T's loss was over 10.5% compared to the same period last year.
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