AT&T Inc. Discloses Data Breach Impacting 73 Million Customers
AT&T Inc. recently announced a data breach that has affected approximately 73 million current and former customers, with their personal information being leaked onto the dark web. The leaked data includes sensitive details such as full names, email and postal addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, AT&T account numbers, and passcodes.
In response to the breach, the company has taken steps to reset 7.6 million account passcodes. The leaked data is believed to be from 2019 or earlier, and the source of the breach is currently under investigation. Despite this incident, AT&T has assured that there is no evidence of unauthorized access to its systems and the breach has not significantly impacted its operations.
Impacted customers are being offered credit monitoring at the expense of the company. However, this breach has resulted in AT&T being sued, with a class-action lawsuit being filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas on March 30.
This breach is not the first time AT&T has faced such a security issue, as a hacker had claimed to have stolen personal information from around 70 million AT&T customers three years prior. The telecommunications giant is the third-largest retail wireless carrier in the US, trailing behind Verizon Communications Inc. and T-Mobile US Inc.
Interestingly, T-Mobile, another major wireless carrier, recently agreed to pay $350 million to settle a class-action lawsuit related to a data breach that exposed records of over 50 million customers in 2022. This highlights the growing concern surrounding data security in the telecommunications industry.
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