AT&T customer records compromised

AT&T mobility customers have been receiving emails informing them that a data breach occurred between April 9th and 21st, and that their data was vulnerable during this time.

The culprit wasn’t mentioned, just that it was a third-party source “[that] violated security protocols and accessed customer data.”

So what data was compromised? Pretty much everything that you need to sign up as a subscriber with AT&T: addresses, social security numbers. Phone call records were also at risk, during the breach.

AT&T hasn’t divulged the number of its customers that were susceptible to the breach, but it could very well be a high number, as the cell phone provider has more than 100 million customers nationwide. The only bit of evidence we have is that it is more than 500 people, as the filing was made in the state of California, which means that more than 500 state residents’ data was compromised.

AT&T speculates that the reason why the information was stolen was to unlock smartphones on AT&T’s network, which would then in turn be sold on the black market.

“We recently learned that three employees of one of our vendors accessed some AT&T customer accounts without proper authorization. This is completely counter to the way we require our vendors to conduct business. We know our customers count on us and those who support our business to act with integrity and trust, and we take that very seriously. We have taken steps to help prevent this from happening again, we are notifying affected customers, and we have reported this matter to law enforcement.”

-AT&T statement

Source | Via