AT&T Let Scammers Steal Personal Data from at Least 280,000 Customers Kate Knibbs - Gizmodo
go to original April 9, 2015

Nearly 280,000 AT&T customers had their personal data stolen by scammers, including the last four digits of social security numbers and other identifying information. The huge breach happened when at least three AT&T employees at a Mexico-based call center sold customer data to scammers.

The breach went down from November 2013 to April 2014, lasting 168 days. That’s an absurdly long time for AT&T not to notice a scam of this scale. The Federal Communications Commission is now making the telecom company pay for its lax security, to the steep tune of $25 million. AT&T also has to revamp its security policies (ya think?) and hire a compliance manager.

The scammers apparently wanted customer data so they could unlock AT&T devices. AT&T will “unlock” a device so it can be used with other carriers, as long as a customer makes an unlocking request online. But to make the request, you need certain customer information, like the last four digits of your social security number.

Locked phones are useless on another network, so the thieves wanted as much data as possible to make the stolen phones worth it. AT&T gives up to five unlocking requests per customer, so the breach gave thieves five opportunities to unlock stolen phones for each stolen customer profile.

Read the rest at Gizmodo

Photo: Matt Rourke/Associated Press

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!