AT&T Data Breach: Millions Of Customers Sensitive Information Leaked On Dark Web

There has been a major security breach of data in the American carrier AT&T and sensitive customer information has been leaked on the Dark Web.

It is reported that 73 million current or former AT&T customers’ details have been leaked online. The data breach included consumer addresses, social security numbers and pass codes.

Source Of Breach Not Clear

 AT&T in a statement has not received any evidence that the data has been stolen but has said that cyber security experts have been called in to investigate. AT&T has said that it will reset all the customer’s codes as a precautionary measure.

However it has cautioned all its customers to remain vigilant and monitor account activity and credit reports. Data breach of 7.6 million customers and 65.4 million former account holders is from 2019 or earlier.

Data Leaked Include Sensitive Information

The data breach involved sensitive information like email addresses and dates of birth but AT&T has confirmed that financial information had not appeared in the leak. Also AT&T has stated that it is not clear if the breach has happened from its system or the breach happened from a third party supplier.

Information about the hack first surfaced on a hacking forum a fortnight ago. It is still not clear if the leak was akin to the hack which had happened in 2021 that was widely reported but that AT&T did not acknowledge.

The hacker had in 2021 also claimed to have access to 70 million AT&T customers, including their names, addresses, phone numbers, SSNs, and date of birth. The hacker also attempted to sell the data for thousands of dollars.

AT&T Hit By Major Outage In February Also

AT&T is one of the biggest carriers in the U.S. and its 5G networks boast a user base of 290 million people across the US and major mobile and internet services providers. The carrier was in the news in February when the network was hit by a major outage and tens of thousands of users were affected.

The carrier had to issue an apology and also paid $5 for all the users who were affected by the outage. The outage also led to prosecutors in New York to investigate the outage which lasted for 12 hours.  AT&T had blamed the outage on a technical coding error, not a malicious attack.

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