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AT&T was reported to have paid a ransom of $400,000 to hackers.

AInvestSunday, Jul 14, 2024 8:30 pm ET
1min read

AT&T, the US phone and cable company, revealed on Friday that hackers had stolen the call and text records of almost all its mobile customers, including data from May 1, 2022, to October 31, 2022, and phone and text records from January 2, 2023.

A hacker who claimed to have stolen sensitive call and text records from AT&T revealed to the media over the weekend that he had been paid about $400,000 to delete the data.

An analysis of the bitcoin wallet address provided by the hacker suggests a transaction in mid-May that matches a ransom payment. A person familiar with the negotiations over ransomware confirmed that AT&T had paid the hacker. The person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a confidential matter, did not know whether the company had paid the hacker through an intermediary.

A spokesman for AT&T declined to comment on whether the company had paid a ransom to control the consequences of the hack. The attack may have exposed the call and text records of almost all of its wireless customers for six months. The FBI and the Justice Department also declined to comment on the alleged payment.

The scope and detail of the data, including some location information, posed a security risk, and some experts said the size of the ransom payment seemed relatively small compared with other recent high-profile ransomware incidents. The data breach was one of many leaks of sensitive information caused by a security breach at Snowflake, a data analysis software provider, which is still dealing with the fallout.

The hacker said he provided the information — and a video of about seven minutes that he claimed showed him deleting the data — to prove he had complied with his agreement with AT&T. The person also said other hackers were involved. It is not clear whether the video is authentic, or whether other attackers were involved in the breach.

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