AT&T Suffers Another Major Data Breach Compromising the Data of 73 Million Users

• AT&T announces major data breach affecting data of 73 million users (both old and new)
• They are still investigating the source of the leak - there doesn't seem to be any unauthorized access on their part
• The company has already informed affected users and has assured them that they'll offer necessary help

AT&T has been hit by another major data breach where the personal information of 73 million users has been leaked.

The stolen data belongs to 7.6 million current users and 65.4 former users and includes the following:

• Social security numbers
• Full names
• Dates of birth
• Passwords
• Addresses

The only relief here is that so far, no financial data or call history has been found in the leak.

The leak was first noticed by a verified X user named vx-underground who believed the leaked data to be legitimate.

Then it was confirmed by AT&T through a news release on Saturday when it said that the dataset was leaked on the dark web 2 weeks ago but the actual data seems to be from 2019.

Read more: Biggest cyberattacks of 2023 and what caused them

What Caused The Breach?

There's still no clarity if the data was stolen from AT&T or one of its vendors because the company doesn't have any evidence of unauthorized access to its systems. Investigations are still ongoing to determine the original source of the leak.

We determined in 2021 that the information offered on this online forum did not appear to have come from our systems. We believe and are working to confirm that the data set discussed today is the same dataset that has been recycled several times on this forum.

The company has also assured that they have been actively reaching out to customers affected by the breach and asking them to reset their passwords.

Customers have been asked to stay vigilant and watch out for unsolicited changes in their accounts. If needed, AT&T has also promised to offer credit monitoring at its own expense.

AT&T frequently struggles with technical issues. Just this February, the firm was hit by a major outage that affected thousands of users.

The incident was investigated by prosecutors from New York which left many people unable to use their phones for 12 hours, compelling the company to offer a public apology and a $5 credit to those affected.

Cyber breaches are becoming far too common these days. And with time, the attack techniques are getting more and more sophisticated. Even government organizations aren't safe anymore.

The bigger problem is that research shows that most cybersecurity teams take 277 days to identify and contain a breach. So it's high time that companies take necessary steps to keep up with the advancing threats and customers need to be careful about the type of data they share online.

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