AT&T cybersecurity breach potentially posed 'risk to national security'

AT&T customers in 2022 likely had their data exposed in a major cyberattack. That's according to federal filings from the company and the U.S. Department of Justice. Despite the service provider finding out about the hack a few months ago, DOJ asked AT&T to keep the data breach quiet.

The Department of Justice tells Scripps News that this incident "met the standard" that warranted a delay in releasing information about it, because it posed a "substantial risk to national security and public safety."

Why it met that standard isn't clear at this point.

Many of the details involving this breach came in a filing that AT&T submitted to the federal Securities and Exchange Commission.

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In that filing, the company said, "On May 9, 2024, and again on June 5, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice determined that a delay in providing public disclosure was warranted. AT&T is now timely filing this report. AT&T is working with law enforcement in its efforts to arrest those involved in the incident. Based on information available to AT&T it understands that at least one person has been apprehended. As of the date of this filing, AT&T does not believe that the data is publicly available."

Now, we know that the breach affected 110 million AT&T customers, including those who were using their wireless and landline services from May to October of 2022.

Information that was accessed in the breach includes phone and text records, but the company says it did not include the contents of the phone and text messages.

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In the meantime, one member of Congress is reacting to news of the incident.

"This is not the first data breach revealed by a major phone company and it won't be the last," said Sen. Ron Wyden in a statement to Scripps News. "These hacks, which are almost always the result of inadequate cybersecurity, won't end until the FCC starts holding the carriers accountable for their negligence. These companies will keep shortchanging customer security until it hits them in the wallet with billion-dollar fines."

Cybersecurity experts say this has the potential to be a national security threat because of the sheer number of customers affected by the data breach.

The data that was accessed in this breach is also the kind of data that is normally sought by U.S. intelligence agencies when they are targeting individuals outside of the United States in national security investigations.

At this point, authorities aren't saying who may have accessed the data in this breach, nor what's been done with it.