AT&T has revealed that it was hacked by a third party vendor. The vendor or employees of that vendor gained unauthorized access to AT&T customer data including Social Security numbers and birthdays. AT&T has not said how many customers are affected but they are sending notices and providing credit monitoring.
According to AT&T the vendor’s employees accessed customer accounts while requesting codes from AT&T used to unlock AT&T mobile phones for re-sale and activation on other telecommunications providers networks.
Breaking It Down
This was an inside job. Even AT&T admits it. They partnered with another company in a business deal to re-sell cell phones and, as it turns out, the vendor could not be trusted.
If you are African-American and an AT&T customer you need to pay attention. Since no one knows how many records were breached your name might be among them. Black customers need to be aware of what information companies have of yours. To get a cell phone contract you must have acceptable credit. Thus they need your Social Security number and date of birth. So you need to ask yourself; how many other companies have this information?
AT&T is surely going to terminate their relationship with this company but what I want to know is where were the safeguards? Did they not see this could happen? How was customer information so easily accessed? Especially information like Social Security numbers. If you don’t know this is the Holy Grail of personal information and made even more valuable by the addition of birth dates. How the hell did that happen? AT&T will never tell.
And as for terminating relationships this would be a good one to start with. You want to send a message to AT&T? Simply terminate your contract and refused to pay the early termination fees. If they placed it on your credit record dispute it. Take a stand! If enough people do that its going to hurt. Even for a company as large as AT&T.
AT&T is not offering their customers anything to compensate for this screw up. What I get tired of hearing is how they are going to “provide credit monitoring to affected customers.” Let me tell every African-American that reads this blog; credit monitoring is the equivalent of having a fire alarm but no fire department. If something happens to you as a result of this breach all you get is a warning. You’d have to sue AT&T to get anything more.
For more information on this AT&T hack please visit the following sites;
AT&T customer data compromised by phone unlocking service
AT&T confirms inside job responsible for customer data breach
For more information on this AT&T hack please visit the following sites;