AT&T has acknowledged that a data breach circulating online includes information from more than 7.6 million current customers and 65 million former customers. The company is resetting security passcodes for affected active customers, and the leaked information includes “name, email address, mailing address, phone number, social security number, date of birth, AT&T account number, It may have contained a passcode.”
AT&T is contacting affected customers “by email or letter” to let them know what data was involved and what they are doing to help them.
It wasn't until after the company admitted that the leaked data was real – the first reports about the breach surfaced in 2021 tech crunch notified AT&T of the encrypted passcode vulnerability on Monday. Passcodes are typically four-digit numeric PINs used for account security when calling corporate support or authenticating in-store, and according to analysis by security researchers, passcodes are “easy to crack” It became clear that.
The FAQ states that customers can set up free fraud alerts from credit reporting companies Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. AT&T said the data set “appears to be from before 2019 and does not include personal financial information or call history.” The company said it is “working with external cybersecurity experts to analyze the situation” and so far there is no “evidence of authorized access” to its systems.
