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Nine Million AT&T Customers Exposed in Hack

AT&T
AT&T logo on phone screen | Image by sdx15, Shutterstock

A data breach at AT&T in January exposed more than nine million customers’ private information.

“A vendor that we use for marketing experienced a security incident,” AT&T wrote in an email to The Dallas Express. “Customer Proprietary Network Information from some wireless accounts was exposed, such as the number of lines on an account or [the] wireless rate plan. The information did not contain credit card information, Social Security Number, account passwords or other sensitive personal information. We are notifying affected customers.”

The representative said the data that was exposed was several years old and was mostly associated with device upgrade eligibility.

AT&T also said the vulnerability has since been fixed and that none of its systems were compromised as a result.

In the wake of the breach, you might be wondering, “How can I protect myself?”

AT&T told Fox News that customers who make a CPNI Restriction Request reduce the risk of their data being exposed if the company were to use their data for third-party marketing purposes.

Otherwise, a good antivirus program is a sound strategy to ensure you can protect yourself from having your data exposed in a breach. It also has the dual function of protecting you from phishing emails and other types of scams.

Identity theft protection is another step you can take to protect yourself from data breaches. Some plans even tell you when your information is being sold on the deep web.

Two-step authentication adds another level of security, as well as having strong passwords and not reusing them.

It should be noted that data breaches are very common. Hackers usually take advantage of vulnerabilities in software or weaknesses in the passwords of company employees.

There have been numerous breaches in 2022, including Microsoft, the Red Cross, and even News Corp, according to ERM Protect.

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4 Comments

  1. Vince

    Nothing like down playing the severity of the situation. The only thing ATT cares about is customer retention at any cost.

    Reply
  2. Djea3

    There need to be laws that create a “liquidated damages” automatically when these things happen. Something like $1,000 per incident. The issue is that they are SELLING your data to a third party “partner”. Truly there is no good that can ever come from allowing the sale to a third party at any time.

    Reply
  3. Pap

    Why is it not against the law for any company or organization to sell your personal information? What in the hell gives them the right to do that? I recently went to a new vet. After I saw her, I started getting emails from a pet insurance company, of which I saw a poster in her office. She has my information because I took my dog there. She shouldn’t have the right to do whatever she wants with my personal information. I figure she’s getting a referral kickback from that company. Everything is so crooked nowadays it’s unbelievable.

    Computers are the downfall of the world. They’re the reason hacking is possible. They’re the reason the government is going to be able to get complete control.

    Reply
  4. Steve

    I guess they were too busy screwing NewsMax to notice somebody was draining their data

    Reply

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