Community Chat

[Mz iMac]

Hackers stole six months' worth of call and text message records of nearly every AT&T cellular network customer, the company said Friday, a breach that has the potential to reveal sensitive information about millions of Americans.

The company said in an SEC filing that it learned from an internal investigation that in April, hackers "unlawfully accessed and copied AT&T call logs" that were saved on a third-party cloud platform.

The data contains records of calls and texts between approximately May 1 and Oct. 31, 2022, and on Jan. 2, 2023.

The content of the calls and messages was not compromised and customers' personal information was not accessed — but the records did include phone numbers. Such information is often called metadata, which is information about communications, and considered highly sensitive especially when collected and analyzed at large scales to reveal patterns and connections between people.

AT&T's wireless network has 127 million devices connected to it, according to the company's 2023 annual report.

"While the data does not include customer names, there are often ways, using publicly available online tools, to find the name associated with a specific telephone number," the company said in its SEC filing.

The Justice Department and the FBI each said it is working with AT&T to investigate the hack. The FCC also said it had launched an investigation into the breach.

John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, which focuses on communications technology and security, called the hack at "megabreach," emphasizing that metadata stolen at this scale has the potential to be a major national security threat as well as a problem for businesses and individuals.

"These are incredibly sensitive pieces of personal information and, when taken together at the scale of information that appears to be included in this AT&T breach, they presetent a massive NSA-like window into Americans’ activity," he said, nodding to the leaks by Edward Snowden that exposed the National Security Agency's bulk collection of metadata.

Thomas Rid, a professor of strategic studies and the director of the Alperovitch Institute for Cybersecurity Studies at Johns Hopkins University, said metadata can reveal intimate details about people, though he cautioned that more needs to be learned about what hackers took from AT&T before a full picture of the threat will be clear.

"If you have somebody’s metadata, you know when they go to work, where they go to work, where they sleep every night," he said.

AT&T said it has "taken additional cybersecurity measures in response to this incident including closing off the point of unlawful access." Customers affected by the hack will be contacted, it said.

SOURCE:  nbcnews.com/news/us-news/t-says-hackers-stole-records-nearly-cell-customers-calls-texts-rcna161507

[Somertime]

I was mailed a notice in April 2024 notifying me of a data breach and offering me one year of free credit monitoring at Experian and have until August 30, 2024.

I do not have a cell phone with AT&T but I do have Direct TV through AT&T.

Anyone else receive this notice?

[kitcat51]

I received the AT&T notification & I don't want another free credit monitoring offer since I already have 2 from other company breaches this year...I'm fed up so what I want is money.

[SaveTheTurtles]

I received the notice also, seems like it's a recurring theme.

[CalminHeart]

I received a message from AT&T months ago about this and changed my password. 

If you haven't changed your password this year, do it now.

[Pecky]

I haven't gotten the notice, but I did see it on the new.  This is getting ridiculous. 

[Estellee]

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I got an email too, I signed up for their free credit report monitoring. Get a notification every month. No personal info breached.

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[Imaoldhippie]

and they are just letting us know?

[Estellee]

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@Imaoldhippie wrote:

and they are just letting us know?

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@Imaoldhippie I received notification several months ago.

[teganslaw]

I don't have AT &T and would never deal with them after all these breaches. Free credit monitoring has done nothing to protect their consumers. Wonder if it's an insider doing the hacking.