AT&T Says Huge Breach Affects Records Of ‘Nearly All’ Customers

The telecom giant said the records—but not the content—of phone and text messages for seven months of 2022 was exposed.

AT&T said Friday that records of phone and text messages for “nearly all” customers was exposed in a significant data breach.

The records date from a seven-month period of 2022—from May 1, 2022, to Oct. 31, 2022, according to the telecom giant.

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The breach only affects the records of phone and text messages and does not impact the content of the messages, AT&T said.

AT&T disclosed having about 110 million wireless customers by the end of 2022, according to CNN.

The company said in a news release that the “customer data was illegally downloaded from our workspace on a third-party cloud platform.” AT&T did not identify the cloud platform, but an AT&T spokesperson told TechCrunch that the theft of customer records was part of the recent wave of data theft attacks targeting Snowflake customers.

CRN has reached out to AT&T and Snowflake for comment.

“Based on our investigation, the compromised data includes files containing AT&T records of calls and texts of nearly all of AT&T's cellular customers, customers of mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) using AT&T's wireless network, as well as AT&T's landline customers who interacted with those cellular numbers between May 1, 2022 - October 31, 2022,” AT&T said in the news release.

The records “identify the telephone numbers [that] an AT&T or MVNO cellular number interacted with during these periods,” the company said. “For a subset of records, one or more cell site identification number(s) associated with the interactions are also included.”

However, “the data does not contain the content of calls or texts, personal information such as Social Security numbers, dates of birth, or other personally identifiable information,” AT&T said. “It also does not include some typical information you see in your usage details, such as the time stamp of calls or texts.”

The data that was compromised also includes records from Jan. 2, 2023, “for a very small number of customers,” the company said.

AT&T noted that it has “taken steps to close off the illegal access point” that resulted in the breach, and believes that “at least one person has been apprehended” in connection with the incident.