Happy Friday Attila,
If you or someone you know has AT&T mobile service, there's a good chance they were affected by the data breach announced this week. Here's the quick need-to-know:
AT&T confirmed that a total of 73 million customer accounts were leaked onto the Darkweb for criminals to target.
the data consists of past and present customers going back to at least 2019, so if you're a previous AT&T customer, you could be a victim.
The breach includes sensitive data like Social Security numbers, addresses and account information.
AT&T has not taken ownership of the breach, stating that its unclear if it was them or one of their vendors. Their release says that "Currently, AT&T does not have evidence of unauthorized access to its systems."
AT&T reset the account passwords for 7.6 million of its current customers found in the breach and encouraged others who thought they might be affected to do this same. But, this is far from over.
The Takeaway
You can bet that cybercriminals are all over this latest data dump and will use this treasure trove to target victims with all kinds of scams and schemes.
"We encourage customers to remain vigilant by monitoring account activity and credit reports," AT&T said. "You can set up free fraud alerts from nationwide credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion."
While that's great advice, the big problem is the leaked passwords to those AT&T accounts. If you're using that same password for any other web service, you can bet that criminals are going to try it. Your best defense? Make sure that you have good password cyber hygiene by:
1) Using a unique, complex password for each website you use.
2) Turn on 2-factor authentication (such as text message code) on every site that supports it.
3) Use a password manager such as Keeper or Bitwarden to create and store these long, complex passwords and auto-fill your MFA codes (they can also serve as your Authenticator app).
There's no way you're going to remember complex passwords and the advice we've seen about creating your own password algorithm and trying to memorize them is just hard. Use a password manager and save yourself the pain. Have questions about setting up a password manager? Feel free to reach out, we can help.
Stay safe out there. -Attila
New Friday Funnies
If you say AT&T backwards, you sound like a Canadian bomb tech.
"A friend manages an AT&T store and invited me to his wedding. Service was good but the reception was terrible..."