AT&T has recently started the process of notifying millions of customers about a data breach that has led to the theft of personal information. The telecommunications company revealed that a dataset containing Social Security numbers of approximately 7.6 million current AT&T account holders and 65.4 million former account holders was discovered on the dark web.
In response to the breach, AT&T has taken steps to reset the passcodes of current users and will be reaching out to affected account holders. The origin of the compromised data is still under investigation, and it is unclear if it came from AT&T or one of its vendors. Fortunately, the data does not include financial information or call history, but it does include other sensitive information like email and mailing addresses, phone numbers, and birth dates.
Cybersecurity researcher Troy Hunt noted the similarities between this recent data breach and a similar event in 2021 that AT&T failed to acknowledge. If AT&T mishandled the situation and failed to notify impacted customers in a timely manner, they may face class action lawsuits in the future.
This incident comes at a challenging time for AT&T, as it follows an outage in February that disrupted cellphone service for many users. Despite attributing the outage to a technical error rather than a malicious attack, AT&T continues to face scrutiny over its handling of sensitive customer data and service disruptions.
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