(IntegrityPress.org) – Nearly every single customer of AT&T had their personal information exposed to hackers in what looks like one of the largest data breaches in recent history.
The company says almost all of its mobile phone customers were caught up in a hacking operation that lasted for six months during 2022. The hackers found the customer data on a third-party hosting system called Snowflake, the same system from which another group of hackers stole data from events giant Ticketmaster in a separate digital break-in.
In a submission to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), AT&T said they investigated the hacking in April and found that digital thieves had “unlawfully accessed” and made copies of the customer call logs stored on Snowflake. In a statement from the company’s head of information security, Brad Jones, AT&T said somewhat cryptically that they had not found evidence of any vulnerabilities or breach of the Snowflake platform. It is unclear what AT&T may be implying.
The hackers were able to steal an alarming amount of data. According to AT&T, the thieves got away with the call records and text messages of every one of the company’s cell phone customers. Landline customers who interacted with cell phone customers also had their data stolen. The theft occurred from May 1 to October 31 of 2022. A smaller number of customers also lost data to the hackers in January 2023.
It seems the thieves got the records of the calls and texts, but not the actual content of the conversations customers engaged in. Thankfully, no one’s Social Security numbers or birth dates were accessed by the hackers.
AT&T has 110 million cell phone and wireless customers, and the company says it will begin notifying affected customers. The company also says it has beefed up security measures, though it did not provide any detail. The SEC filing says the U.S. Department of Justice approved the company’s request to delay releasing the news as AT&T had a legitimate need to keep hush while it was investigating the breach.
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