Millions Of AT&T Customer Call, Text Message Records Leaked

Hey, remember when the FCC tried to implement some really basic consumer privacy protections for wireless and broadband but AT&T convinced GOP Senators to kill those efforts before they could even take effect? Good times.

Anyway, AT&T has revealed that the detailed call and text message data of millions of customers were “illegally download” from a third-party cloud platform. According to the telecom giant, the data includes the phone numbers of “nearly all” AT&T customers, as well as a record of every number AT&T customers called or texted, when the communications happened, and how long the exchanges were.

Unlike a different recent leak of data from roughly 73 million AT&T customers to the open web (which the company tried to pretend somehow hadn’t happened), AT&T’s being far more up front about this breach, providing an entire website explaining the scope of the problem:

“At this time, we do not believe the data is publicly available. We continue to work with law enforcement in their efforts to arrest those involved. Based on information available to us, we understand that at least one person has been apprehended.”

On the plus side, the leak doesn’t seem to include the actual contents of the text messages and calls in question — that we know of. But the breach did reveal cell site identification numbers linked to the calls and texts, meaning physical user location data may have also been compromised.

It sounds like AT&T only discovered this latest attack after it began investigating its previous one, indicating that they might not ever have never known it happened if Troy Hunt, security researcher and owner of data breach notification site Have I Been Pwned, hadn’t revealed the first one.

It’s worth noting at this point that AT&T has been a relentless champion of dismantling any and all efforts to impose privacy oversight of telecom. You might recall that in 2017 the FCC finally imposed some basic privacy safeguards for wireless and broadband networks, that AT&T successfully lobbied GOP Congressmen to kill via the Congressional Review Act before they could even take effect.

That AT&T works in almost perfect synchronicity with the GOP to ensure that U.S. consumer protection (on privacy and everything else) is as broken and feckless as possible isn’t context most mainstream news outlets think is worth mentioning as important context.