AT&T on Friday said a data breach exposed the call and text messages of “nearly all” cellular customers and wireless providers that use its network.
In a news release, AT&T said that data belonging to “nearly all” customers was “illegally downloaded” from a third-party cloud platform. The third-party platform was identified by a company spokesperson as Snowflake Inc, Bloomberg reported.
The company said, “We have taken steps to close off the illegal access point.”
The breach involved data from May 1, 2022, and October 31, 2022. A “very small number” of customers’ data was exposed from January 2, 2023.
It was discovered earlier this year, The Associated Press reported.
Those with AT&T landlines who interacted with the cell phone customers also were impacted.
Customer names were not part of the breach. However, as CNN pointed out, there are services that can connect cell phone numbers with people’s names.
“The data does not contain the content of calls or texts, personal information such as Social Security numbers, dates of birth, or other personally identifiable information,” the company said, according to ABC News.
“At this time, we do not believe that the data is publicly available,” AT&T said in a news release, adding, “We sincerely regret this incident occurred and remain committed to protecting the information in our care.”
AT&T said it had about 110 million wireless subscribers at the end of 2022.
Bloomberg called it “one of the biggest breaches of private communication data in recent memory.” AT&T said it will notify current and former customers whose data was breached.
The declaration was made in a regulatory filing on Friday, Bloomberg reported.
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