The call and text message records of hundreds of millions of AT&T cellphone customers in mid-to-late 2022 were exposed in a massive data breach, the telecom company revealed Friday.
There needs to be extremely stiff penalties on companies that lose customer data. It should be a large enough penalty that companies are afraid to keep customer data.
I agree, but also this is six months worth of data. I think most people would expect their records to be kept for at least a few months. If my kid suddenly disappeared, for example, I'd expect to be able to go to the phone company and get information on who she's been talking to. I'd expect to be able to get records to prove harassment or bullying, too.
It would be nice to give people control over the retention of their own data. That would satisfy everyone's needs, I would think.
Fairly certain after the Snowden leaks it’s pretty much guaranteed that every text message and every phone call you’ve ever made your whole life is documented
I'd expect to be able to go to the phone company and get information on who she's been talking to. I'd expect to be able to get records to prove harassment or bullying, too.
I know that's the reality, but I would not expect that at all. Do you also expect you can call your ISP and get a list of all the sites your kid went to?
AT&T said the hacked data did not include the content of calls and text messages. At this point, the exposed data is not believed to be publicly available.
Still bad, but it could have been far worse.
That said, I would bet that if this hasn't already happened to most other carriers and it hasn't been made public yet, it will happen soon enough.
Given all the security training and certifications required to work in network security,
Certifications cannot verify creativity, it's why they're kind of useless for a lot of IT(and I suppose other engineering fields). Security like QA requires exploring unique paths that other people wouldn't have thought of
Seems like these sort of hacks always involve the company's data about its users, and never their own confidential contracts, trade secrets, or other leaks that could directly damage their own operations.
It makes a guy suspect they actually have a very good understanding of information security, but just don't think yours is worth the bother.
Anyone mind explaining what the hacker(s) was (were) going to do with the limited information they got? I read the security filing said they got a list of which phone numbers texted/called which phone numbers and what durations, but none of the actual content.
I'm guessing political blackmail. It's easy to start linking phone numbers and find the senator that's been texting his mistress every day or spending hour long calls with Russian numbers, etc