AT&T, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the United States, has revealed a significant data breach that compromised the call and text records of “nearly all” its cellular customers. The breach occurred between May 1, 2022, and October 31, 2022, with a small number of customers affected on January 2, 2023.
The company disclosed the breach in a regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, stating that hackers accessed an AT&T workspace on a third-party cloud platform. The stolen data includes files containing records of calls and texts between AT&T numbers and the numbers they interacted with during the specified period.
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While the compromised data does not include the content of calls or texts, nor personally identifiable information like Social Security numbers or birth dates, it does raise privacy concerns. The records could potentially reveal patterns of communication and social connections.
AT&T claims that the stolen data is not publicly available at this time. However, the company is notifying affected customers and has implemented additional security measures to protect its systems.
“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.
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This breach is separate from another incident disclosed earlier this year, in which hackers stole personal information for millions of current and former AT&T customers. That data was reportedly shared on the dark web.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and other regulatory agencies are investigating the breach. Customers are advised to monitor their accounts for any suspicious activity and to be vigilant against phishing scams that may try to exploit the stolen data.
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