AT&T Admits Cybercriminals Stole Phone Records of ‘Nearly All’ Customers

Telecommunications giant AT&T says cybercriminals have stolen phone records belonging to “nearly all” of its customers. The compromised data includes millions of phone numbers, calling and text records, and information revealing its customers’ locations.

AT&T said it will begin contacting around 110 million of its customers to notify them of a data breach that resulted in cybercriminals obtaining their phone records, a company spokesperson told TechCrunch on Friday.

The spokesperson added that AT&T customer records were stolen from the cloud data giant Snowflake, which reportedly blamed recent data thefts on its customers for not using multi-factor authentication to secure their accounts.

AT&T also announced “unlawful access of customer data” on its website.

“Our investigation found that the downloaded data included phone call and text message records of nearly all of AT&T cellular customers from May 1, 2022 to October 31, 2022 as well as on January 2, 2023,” the company said.

While “the access point has been secured,” the stolen data includes AT&T landline (home phone) customers, as well as customers of other cell carriers that rely on AT&T’s network or have interacted with AT&T wireless numbers, AT&T added.

Stolen records also included counts of those calls or texts and total call durations for specific days or months, as well as information that can be used to determine the approximate location of where a call was made or text message sent during the six-month period.

“We do not believe the data is publicly available,” AT&T said.

The stolen data does not include the content of any calls or texts, nor the time stamps for the calls or texts, the company added. It also does not include any details involving Social Security numbers, dates of birth, or other personally identifiable information.

AT&T said it is working with law enforcement in their efforts to arrest the cybercriminals involved in the breach, and that “at least one person has been apprehended.”

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.