According to AT&T, a significant hacking issue occurred in April when data from around 109 million user accounts—which included call and text logs from 2022—was obtained without authorization.

The major breach of customer communication information occurred when AT&T call logs were copied from its workspace on a third-party cloud platform. The U.S. telecom giant announced that the FBI is looking into the incident and that at least one individual has been detained.

Following a ransomware assault on UnitedHealth Group’s Change Healthcare business in February that affected an estimated one-third of the nation whose private data may have been compromised, AT&T’s breach is the most recent significant hack to affect a large portion of the American population.

According to AT&T, files including AT&T records of calls and messages made by almost all of its cellular and landline customers engaging with those cellular numbers between May and October 2022 are among the stolen data. Call or text message content, as well as private data like social security numbers, are not included in the data.

Early trading saw a 1.2% decline in AT&T shares. At the Justice Department’s request, AT&T had withheld the hack’s public disclosure.

While saying it worked “collaboratively through the first and second delay process, all while sharing key threat intelligence to bolster FBI investigative equities and to assist AT&T’s incident-response work,” the FBI did not name any suspects on Friday.

Records for a limited number of consumers dated January 2, 2023 are also included in the hacked data.

AT&T stated that it became aware of the hacker’s allegation that it had illegally obtained and duplicated its call data on April 19. According to the business, throughout the course of its investigation, hackers illegally downloaded files including AT&T call and text interaction information between April 14 and April 25. Customers of AT&T’s mobile virtual network operators who use AT&T’s wireless network are also included in the records.

These records list the phone numbers that a wireless number communicated with during these times, along with the total duration of the calls. A cell site identification number appears in one or more of the entries in a subset.

AT&T stated that it had blocked unauthorised access and doesn’t think the information is accessible to the general public.

In March, AT&T announced that it was looking into a data collection that had been made available on the “dark web” and that, based on its first investigation, it had impacted around 65.4 million former and 7.6 million current account customers. The data set seems to be from 2019 or earlier, according to the business.

(Adapted from CNBCTV18.com)