AT&T customers are waking up to some pretty unsettling news. The carrier is alerting its users about a substantial data breach affecting virtually all AT&T subscribers. No, this is not good.
The second-largest carrier in the U.S. has reported that customer data was illegally downloaded from a third-party cloud platform. The downloaded data includes phone call and text message records of “nearly all” AT&T cellular customers from May 1, 2022, to October 31, 2022. The compromised data also includes records from January 2, 2023, for a very small number of customers.
These stolen records also identify other phone numbers with which an AT&T wireless number interacted during the same period, including AT&T home phone customers. On the plus side, AT&T does not believe the breached data is publicly available and is working with law enforcement to resolve the issue. At least one person has been apprehended in the case.
The company assures customers that the downloaded data does not include call or text content, time stamps, or important user details such as Social Security numbers or dates of birth. AT&T cautions, however, that “while the data doesn’t include customer names, there are often ways to find a name associated with a phone number using publicly available online tools.”
If you have been affected by this breach, AT&T will contact you via text, email, or U.S. mail. In the meantime, current AT&T customers can contact the company to determine if they have been affected and what data may have been compromised. Former AT&T customers also have the option to make a request.
This is troubling news for anyone connected with AT&T. We hope to receive more information about the breach soon. Regrettably, data breaches impacting carriers are not uncommon.
For example, in March of this year, we reported another AT&T breach that affected 7.6 million current and 65.4 million former customers. Personal information, including names and Social Security numbers, was compromised during that attack. Last year, T-Mobile dealt with a similar issue that involved 37 million subscribers. Verizon, the nation’s top carrier, has also been affected by data breaches that have included both customer and employee data. Outside of mobile, Ticketmaster also got hit by hackers this year.
