Alabamians voice privacy concerns after AT&T data breach

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. ( WIAT ) – The AT&T hack is raising concerns among some people, wondering how much trust they can have in their data privacy.

Many people CBS 42 spoke to agree it’s unsettling when a data breach happens since most of our private information is stored in our devices.

“As we increasingly live in a world where our data has to be something that’s important to us and we have to be able to record ourselves online, having people have access to it that we don’t want to is increasingly going to be a problem,” Birmingham resident Cameron Tyler said.

Some people around Birmingham say they’re not surprised to hear there was a hack of a telephone company.

“Makes me want to get rid of my phone,” Tuscaloosa resident Yaseen Muthanm said. “You text between one person, individual person, for that privacy or you talk to that person, which is better, but texting you get that privacy. But with it going out, being leaked, like they said with the AT&T hack, it’s not a good look.”

UAB’s Center for Cyber Security says data breaches and hacks like what AT&T has seen are becoming more common.

“In the past, criminals didn’t care much about computers or hacking into different systems,” Ragib Hasan, director of the Center for Cyber Security, said. “Like 30 years ago, only bored teenagers would do that. But these days, organized crime has figured out that there’s money to make by doing these kinds of breaches.”

AT&T said it’s not providing additional protection services at this time. However, it warned customers to be cautious about email or text requests that ask for personal, account or credit card information.

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