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AT&T says hackers breached ‘nearly all’ customer data in 2022, assures exposed data not publicly available
AT&T said that the 2022 data breach exposed “nearly all” call and text records of tens of millions of customers.
On Friday, US telecom giant AT&T revealed that “nearly all” call and text message records from mid-to-late 2022 of tens of millions of its cellphone customers, as well as many non-AT&T customers, were exposed.
The telecom giant stated that the compromised data includes the telephone numbers of “nearly all” of its cellular customers, along with those of wireless providers that use its network, covering the period between May 1, 2022, and October 31, 2022.
The stolen logs contain records of every number AT&T customers called or texted, including customers from other wireless networks, detailing the frequency of interactions and call durations.
The telecom giant larified that the breach did not include the contents of calls and text messages, nor the specific times of these communications.
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AT&T is investigating the breach
Not only the primary affected period, AT&T disclosed that the records of a “very small number” of customers from January 2, 2023, were also compromised. “We have an ongoing investigation into the AT&T breach and we're coordinating with our law enforcement partners,” the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced on X.
AT&T attributed the breach to an “illegal download” from a third-party cloud platform, which the company discovered in April. This incident occurred simultaneously as AT&T was dealing with an unrelated major data leak. Despite concerns, AT&T assured that the exposed data is not believed to be publicly available.
The company also noted that the stolen data did not include international calls, except for those made to Canada.
Alex Byers, an AT&T spokesperson, informed CNN that this breach was entirely separate from another incident disclosed in March, where personal information such as Social Security numbers of 73 million current and former customers was released onto the dark web.
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“We sincerely regret this incident occurred and remain committed to protecting the information in our care,” the company stated regarding the latest breach.
As of the end of 2022, AT&T had approximately 110 million wireless subscribers.
