AT&T admits to customer SSN's and DOB's being stolen
- cypac1
- Jun 13
- 2 min read
Happy Friday This week has been an interesting one. I’m more than ready for the weekend after yesterday’s outage took down nearly half the Internet due to a failure cascade - thank you Google. But what really deserves your attention is the latest development in the AT&T data breach. AT&T had the customer profiles of over 86 million people stolen last year. That exposed database contains more than enough personal information for cybercriminals to commit identity theft, including names, email addresses, phone numbers and most alarmingly, around 44 million Social Security numbers.
Until recently the database was being circulated though underground hacker forums in an encrypted format. That changed a few days ago when the data, including birth dates and Social Security numbers, was fully decrypted and put up for sale. In short, if you or someone you know ever provided a Social Security number to AT&T, it may now be out in the wild.
The Takeaway
Data breaches have been rapidly increasing across the country. According to a report from the Identity Theft Resource Center, the number of data breach victims in the first half of 2024 surpassed 1 billion. That’s a 490 percent increase compared to the first half of 2023. Anyone can get scammed if a bad actor has your name, address, and Social Security number.
What to do now:
Since these features are available on all recent Samsung smartphones, you should really turn them on.
I didn't want to leave you hanging and I didn't want this to be a really long email, so I posted the complete instructions along with pictures on our blog here:
It only takes a couple of minutes and can save you a world of hurt if your phone is lost or stolen.
Stay safe out there. Remember, when it comes to identity theft, the best offense is a boring, locked-down credit profile. Make yourself the least interesting target and hopefully the criminals will pass you by.
-Attila
PS. I keep getting asked about the PBS Insights interview from a couple of weeks ago. Here's the link in case you missed it.
New - the Positivity Box
So I talked about the 2024 breach above. Did you know that AT&T also had a breach in 2023?
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reached a $13 million settlement with AT&T where it had investigated whether the telecom giant engaged in poor privacy and cybersecurity practices. To settle the investigation AT&T agreed to strengthen its data governance practices to protect its consumers' sensitive data against similar data breaches in the future.
After this latest breach, it looks like they may need to go back to the drawing board but it's good to see big companies trying to take our privacy seriously. Hopefully they can set an example to others in the industry.
New Friday Funnies!
What sort of phones do they have in dungeons?
Cell phones.
Apple is announcing a new cell phone for children.
iKid you not.
A old man was driving down the freeway when his wife called his cell phone.
"Randy, I just heard on the news that there's a car going the wrong way on the H1.
Please be careful!"
"It's not just one car," said Randy, "It's hundreds of them!"
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