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AT&T Investigates Dark Web Sale of 86 Million Customer Records

Security experts warn that pairing unencrypted Social Security numbers with birth dates heightens identity theft risk for affected customers

Overview

  • Hackers have listed about 86 million unique AT&T customer records on Russian-language dark web forums, combining decrypted Social Security numbers and dates of birth with contact and account details.
  • The data cache includes names, phone numbers, email and street addresses, and roughly 44 million plain-text SSNs that were originally encrypted in the 2021 breach.
  • Analysis by BleepingComputer and HackRead confirms the leak is a repackaged version of the 2021 ShinyHunters breach data previously re-released in March 2024.
  • AT&T confirms it is conducting a full investigation into the latest postings and maintains that no new breach has occurred.
  • Experts advise affected customers to monitor credit reports, consider freezing their credit, and enable multi-factor authentication to guard against fraud.