The largest telecommunications company in the United States, AT&T, stated that they recently discovered a dataset for sale on the “dark web” that contained information of about 7.6 million current AT&T account holders and 65.4 million former users, totaling approximately 73 million affected accounts.
AT&T shared that the data released contained passcodes and Social Security numbers from 2019 or earlier and could possibly include e-mail and mailing addresses, phone numbers, and birthdates.
AT&T has reached out to all customers via e-mail or mail to let them know of the breach and to reset their passcodes. If you’re an AT&T customer, it’s important to be highly critical of any e-mail asking you to change your password. Please make sure it is from AT&T, as it’s suspected other cybercriminals will attempt to capitalize on this issue and send out fake e-mails with malicious links, hoping someone will click on them. If you’re concerned it’s a fake e-mail, call AT&T support and ask them to send another reset link while you’re on the phone.
As for the cause of the breach, it’s still unknown whether the data breach originated from AT&T or one of its vendors, but AT&T has launched an investigation and will likely hire computer forensics specialists to find the cause of the incident.
The organization will also have to scrub any installed malware out of the software that runs its customer account system without disrupting unaffected customers’ service. Between the investigation, cleaning up the issues, lawsuits, legal fees and more, this will be an expensive issue to solve.
We want to take a moment to share some insights on what to do in case of a network outage and how to be prepared:
1. In case of an emergency, have a landline or VoIP line from a different provider to ensure you’re not completely cut off from communication.
2. Compile a list of friends or family members who live nearby and use different mobile providers in case you need to reach out for help during an outage.
3. Ensure that everyone in your household knows what to do in an emergency where they don’t have access to their phones.
4. Stay informed about regulatory changes regarding landline services. Recent events underscore the importance of having alternative communication options.
That’s why at Gravity IT Solutions, we talk about being proactive with cybersecurity so often. While no solution is 100% impenetrable, most are strong enough to keep the majority of hackers out. It is way more costly to deal with the effects of a cyber-attack than it is to prevent one in the first place.
If you’re concerned about the safety of your organization, request a Security Assessment from our team of cybersecurity experts. We’ll analyze your network so you can see if there are exposed entry points in your network that hackers could use to break in. We’ll also advise on how to work with third-party vendors to ensure your and your customers’ data is as secure as possible.
Hackers will do whatever it takes to break into your network. Your job as the CEO is to do whatever it takes to keep them out. We are here to help! Click here to book your Security Risk Assessment with one of our cybersecurity experts.
