Nearly All Illinois AT&T Customers Just Had Personal Data Exposed

If your cell phone provider in Illinois is AT&T, you need to keep a close eye on your credit history and personal information as the company has revealed that nearly all of its customers were exposed in a historic data breach.

This alert comes directly from AT&T. They have created what they call the Unlawful Access of Customer Data page on their site and it details a terrifying data breach that happened for the better part of a year. Here are their exact words of what happened (I've added emphasis):

"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. These records identify other phone numbers that an AT&T wireless number interacted with during this time, including AT&T landline (home phone) customers."

Here's another key part of their statement which concerns me. They say "at this time, we do not believe the data is publicly available". So it's not publicly available or you're not prepared to admit it "at this time"? Asking for a friend.

I also question why this data breach is just now being revealed considering that it took place a year and a half ago. They state that one person has already been arrested and they're working with law enforcement to apprehend others, so the company obviously has known about this for some time now.

One final takeaway in this admission by AT&T is that while some of your info may not have been directly revealed in the breach, they admit there are easily accessible tools that can connect a name and a phone number which leads to more invasive identify theft dangers.

This is not just directed at AT&T as there are many other companies who have suffered data breaches and not divulged details until months/years afterward, but I question why more companies are not more transparent when their customers information and privacy are at risk.