American wireless carrier AT&T on Monday said it faced data breaches recently.
The telecom service provider informed about 1,600 customers that an employee has gained unauthorized access to their personal data in August. AT&T did not name these customers or share their profile.
A Reuters report says this is the latest in a flurry of data breaches in recent months.
AT&T said the person may have obtained Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers and AT&T services customers subscribed to, according to a letter posted on the website of the Attorney General of Vermont on October 1.
The company has informed telecom regulator FCC regarding the incident. AT&T has also fired the employee, the carrier said.
“Unfortunately, we recently learned that one of our employees did not follow our strict privacy rules and inappropriately obtained some customer information. This individual no longer works at AT&T and we are directly contacting the limited number of affected customers,” said an AT&T spokesman on Monday.
The AT&T data breach incident follows breaches that include a massive cyber attack at JPMorgan Chase & Co, a theft involving Apple’s iCloud and an alleged international computer hacking ring charged with stealing more than $100 million worth of software and data – some of it used to train military pilots and some related to Microsoft Corp’s Xbox.
Aryan B
editor@telecomlead.com
