AT&T Hack Exposes Six Months of Customer Call and Text Logs

The company reported on Friday that hackers had broken into AT&T’s cellular network and made off with records of months of phone calls and texts. The major data breach was detailed in a form to the SEC, with the AT&T filing showing that the breach had been discovered during an internal investigation in April. The stolen data was hosted in the third-party cloud platform and occurred between May 1 and October 31, 2022, and January 2, 2023.

Though the calls and text messages were not read, the hackers were able to steal phone numbers. This kind of breach points toward the significant types of cybersecurity issues that exist with large companies. One of the industry giants in the telecommunication sector, AT&T, had 127 million devices using its wireless network, according to their 2023 annual report.

The company also said that although the information was not provided with the customer’s names, tools are available online, which can associate phone numbers to a specific individual. After this report, AT&T has taken extra steps for cybersecurity in order to block other access and is notifying customers about this.

The company stated that the U.S. Justice Department had requested the company to make the announcement on May 8 and on June 5, before it intended. AT&T is in coordination with enforcement of the law to rectify the breach, and the company confirmed that it has arrested one person at least without making public any details of arrest.

Nonetheless, AT&T assured their customers that no information as of the latest update would have been publicly distributed. The company also mentioned that the breach would not hurt their operations or financial performance.