AT&T to pay $25m after customer information was compromised
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has ordered AT&T to pay a fine of $25m after 280,000 customers’ personal information was stolen. Compromised information included names, addresses, and social security numbers.
According to the claim, AT&T call center employees in Mexico, The Philippines and Colombia stole the information and sold it to people who were seeking to activate stolen devices.
“We’ve changed our policies and strengthened our operations,” AT&T wrote in a statement. “While any misuse of customer information is serious, we have no reason to believe that the information was used for identity theft or financial fraud against our customers.”
However, the FCC was very disturbed by the breech in security.
“The commission cannot, and will not, stand idly by when a carrier’s lax data-security practices expose the personal information of hundreds of thousands,” said Tom Wheeler, chairman of the FCC.
In addition, AT&T is required to notify all compromised customers of the breech.
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