AT&T mentioned it has begun notifying tens of millions of shoppers in regards to the theft of non-public knowledge just lately found on-line.
The telecommunications large mentioned Saturday {that a} dataset discovered on the “dark web” incorporates data akin to Social Safety numbers for about 7.6 million present AT&T account holders and 65.4 million former account holders.
The corporate mentioned it has already reset the passcodes of present customers and will likely be speaking with account holders whose delicate private data was compromised.
It’s not identified if the info “originated from AT&T or one of its vendors,” the corporate mentioned in an announcement. The compromised knowledge is from 2019 or earlier and doesn’t seem to incorporate monetary data or name historical past, it mentioned. Along with passcodes and Social Safety numbers, it could embrace e mail and mailing addresses, telephone numbers and start dates.
Whereas the info surfaced on a hacking discussion board practically two weeks in the past, it intently resembles an identical knowledge breach that surfaced in 2021 however which AT&T by no means acknowledged, mentioned cybersecurity researcher Troy Hunt.
“If they assess this and they made the wrong call on it, and we’ve had a course of years pass without them being able to notify impacted customers,” then it’s doubtless the corporate will quickly face class motion lawsuits, mentioned Hunt, founding father of an Australia-based web site for warning folks when their private data has been uncovered.
An AT&T spokesperson didn’t instantly return a request for remark Saturday.
It’s not the primary disaster this yr for the Dallas-based firm. An outage in February quickly knocked out cellphone service for 1000’s of U.S. customers. AT&T on the time blamed the incident on a technical coding error, not a malicious assault.
