Are you with AT&T? You got owned. Techcrunch reports that nearly all the company's customers have had their phone records heisted by hackers.
U.S. phone giant AT&T confirmed Friday it will begin notifying millions of consumers about a fresh data breach that allowed cybercriminals to steal the phone records of "nearly all" of its customers, a company spokesperson told TechCrunch. In a statement, AT&T said that the stolen data contains phone numbers of both cellular and landline customers, as well as AT&T records of calls and text messages — such as who contacted who by phone or text — during a six-month period between May 1, 2022 and October 31, 2022. AT&T said some of the stolen data includes more recent records from January 2, 2023 for a smaller but unspecified number of customers.
Here's AT&T's disclosure of the incident.
We learned that AT&T customer data was illegally downloaded from our workspace on a third-party cloud platform. We started an investigation and engaged leading cybersecurity experts to help us determine the nature and scope of the issue. We have confirmed the access point has been secured.
Our investigation found that the downloaded data included phone call and text message records of nearly all of AT&T cellular customers from May 1, 2022 to October 31, 2022 as well as on January 2, 2023. These records identify other phone numbers that an AT&T wireless number interacted with during this time, including AT&T landline (home phone) customers. For a subset of the records, one or more cell site ID numbers associated with the interactions are also included.
At this time, we do not believe the data is publicly available. We continue to work with law enforcement in their efforts to arrest those involved. Based on information available to us, we understand that at least one person has been apprehended.
There's so much that could be revealed by the specifics here if it ended up online in any kind of organized way; an Ashley Madison for all the phone calls everyone didn't want anyone to know about.
The number of victims isn't disclosed, but the company's 2023 annual report claims it has 127,000,000 customers.
Our leadership in the Internet of Things is another way we consistently bring the power of connection to our customers. Last year, we grew the total number of connected devices on our network to more than 127 million. And we have more wholesale connected cars than any other carrier in the U.S.
Previously:
• Incredible AT&T chat transcript with terrible customer support specialist
• Trump gave AT&T a $20B tax break and killed Net Neutrality, now they're prepping mass layoffs
• AT&T to the Supreme Court: 'Fuck the FTC'
