On Saturday, March 30, AT&T discovered a dataset on the dark web two weeks prior containing the personal information of millions of current and former account holders. The telecommunications company claims the dataset found on a hacking forum is from 2019 or earlier. The compromised information includes full names, email addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, dates of birth and AT&T account numbers and passcodes. 65.4 million former and 7.6 million current AT&T account holders have been impacted.
Emails are being sent out from [email protected] to all 73 million affected individuals, specifying what information was compromised and offering free identity theft and credit monitoring services. As a precaution, the company has reset the passcodes of the 7.6 million impacted customers.
AT&T urges those who have not changed their passcode in the past year to do so through their myAT&T Profile. Individuals are also encouraged to set up free fraud alerts from credit bureaus such as Equifax, Experian and TransUnion and utilize Freecreditreport.com to review their credit report.
It is unknown whether the dataset originated “from AT&T or one of its vendors.” No evidence has been found of unauthorized access to AT&T systems. The company is further investigating the breach with internal and external cybersecurity experts.
This data breach is the seventh confirmed breach since the telecommunications company’s inception. They are associated with three additional data breaches in which some victims were customers, but AT&T did not claim responsibility and were not held liable.
Alex Petroski of Summit County, Ohio, has filed a class action lawsuit against AT&T as a result of this year’s data breach. He accuses the company of failing to implement the procedures necessary to protect consumers from a preventable cyber attack. The listed injuries suffered in the lawsuit include invasion of privacy, lost opportunity costs associated with attempting to mitigate the actual consequences of the Data Breach, statutory damages and nominal damages.
