AT&T Data Breach

In late March 2024, a hacking group posted confidential data belonging to more than 70 million Americans on the dark web, claiming they obtained the data in 2021 through an AT&T data breach. The group in fact claimed they had the data three years ago and more recently posted it online.

The fallout from this data security incident could be massive as the personal data of millions of AT&T customers—including their names, Social Security numbers and addresses—was leaked.

AT&T remained relatively silent for years, and denied any privacy issues. But if the company does confirm these allegations, they will soon be sending out data breach notification letters detailed what data is at risk. You are encouraged to contact a data theft attorney and begin to protect yourself from the threat of fraud and identity theft.

According to the company’s website, 7.6 million current account holders and 65.4 million former account holders may have been impacted. An AT&T press release said the breach only occurred about two weeks ago, which contradicts some other timeline of events. Regardless, there may be a serious situation at hand, and legal action may be necessary.

A 2023 report from cyber intelligence firm Cyble said that U.S. telecommunications companies have become a huge target for cybercriminals.

Although AT&T said in the past that they did not suffer a recent data breach, a well-known threat actor known as ShinyHunters, allegedly claimed to be selling a set of data containing the personal information of 70 million AT&T customers.

ShinyHunters began selling the data on a hacking forum with a starting price of $200,000 and incremental offers of $30,000. Although not confirmed yet (and currently denied by AT&T) the database allegedly contains names, addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, and dates of birth.

An investigation is ongoing, and at the moment not a lot is known about the supposed hack, or how the data was potentially acquired. ShinyHunters, however, is a well-known threat actor with a high-profile history of cyberattacks, so many experts are taking the claims seriously.

ShinyHunters has breached several companies, including Wattpad, Tokopedia, Microsoft’s GitHub account, BigBasket, Nitro PDF, Pixlr, TeeSpring, Promo.com, and Mathway.

The AT&T data breach news comes shortly after a breach confirmed to impact millions of T-Mobile customers.

Contact our data breach lawyers to learn more about the AT&T data breach and to discuss joining a class action lawsuit. We are currently involved in numerous data breach cases nationwide, and we represent plaintiffs in all fifty states.