AT&T Cell Users In Michigan Victims Of Massive Data Breach

One of the scariest things about technology and the internet is the amount of personal information available. Most people's phone numbers, addresses, occupations, children, family, and other personal information can be found in several databases and social media. This often places individuals in harm's way either physically, emotionally, or socially.

Firstly, people can use this information to stalk you, hunt you down, and cause harm to you or your family physically, which isn't as common as cyberattacks. People are also subject to scams or hacked accounts that could lead to their personal information being taken by someone else. Lastly, many companies have tons of sensitive information from individuals around the country and world, and if the company falls victim to an attack all that information could be up for grabs. That's exactly what happened with AT&T as all of their cell customer's data was breached.

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AT&T just announced that the company's entire database was the victim of a cyberattack that led to a massive data breach. Toward the tail-end of 2022, AT&T's system was hacked into as nearly all of its cell service customers' call and messaging data from May 1, 2022, to October 31, 2022, was leaked. The data breach included every number AT&T customers called, including those from other providers, the number of times they interacted with each number, and the call durations.

The one saving grace that AT&T has is that none of the data that was breached involved the content of phone calls and messages, or the timing of messages between customers and their loved ones. They believe this all started from an illegal download from a third-party cloud platform while they were dealing with another unrelated data breach issue.

This is a separate issue from earlier in March when over 73 million customer's Social Security numbers and other personal information were leaked on the dark web. This time, they do not believe that this information is available but to the public but this has not been verified. AT&T says contents of the calls or texts, personal information such as Social Security numbers, dates of birth, or customer names were not exposed in this incident, however, the company acknowledged that publicly available tools can often link names with specific phone numbers.

AT&T promised to notify current and former customers whose information was involved and provide them with resources to protect their information. They did learn about the cyberattack in April but were granted a delay to public disclosure from the Supreme Court and the FBI to protect the integrity of the investigation.

If you're an AT&T cell user in Michigan, be on the lookout for any correspondence from AT&T about whether or not you were affected by the data breach.