Massive Data Breach at AT&T Exposed Six Months of Call and SMS Records of Nearly All Customers
Matt Egan and Sean Lyngaas, reporting for CNN:
The call and text message records from mid-to-late 2022 of tens of
millions of AT&T cellphone customers and many non-AT&T customers
were exposed in a massive data breach, the telecom company
revealed Friday. AT&T said the compromised data includes the
telephone numbers of “nearly all” of its cellular customers and
the customers of wireless providers that use its network between
May 1, 2022 and October 31, 2022.
The stolen logs also contain a record of every number AT&T
customers called or texted — including customers of other
wireless networks — the number of times they interacted, and the
call duration.
Importantly, AT&T said the stolen data did not include the
contents of calls and text messages nor the time of those
communications.
Of course the breach didn’t contain the content of phone calls and text messages, because carriers don’t record phone calls and, thankfully, don’t log the contents of text messages. This isn’t an important distinction at all. This is a devastating breach.
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Matt Egan and Sean Lyngaas, reporting for CNN:
The call and text message records from mid-to-late 2022 of tens of
millions of AT&T cellphone customers and many non-AT&T customers
were exposed in a massive data breach, the telecom company
revealed Friday. AT&T said the compromised data includes the
telephone numbers of “nearly all” of its cellular customers and
the customers of wireless providers that use its network between
May 1, 2022 and October 31, 2022.
The stolen logs also contain a record of every number AT&T
customers called or texted — including customers of other
wireless networks — the number of times they interacted, and the
call duration.
Importantly, AT&T said the stolen data did not include the
contents of calls and text messages nor the time of those
communications.
Of course the breach didn’t contain the content of phone calls and text messages, because carriers don’t record phone calls and, thankfully, don’t log the contents of text messages. This isn’t an important distinction at all. This is a devastating breach.