TapTechNews July 15th news, Wired magazine reported that AT&T paid approximately $370,000 to a hacker (TapTechNews note: currently about 2.694 million RMB) to delete the customer data stolen in the previous hacker attack.
According to TapTechNews' previous report, AT&T announced last week that hackers had invaded a third-party cloud platform and obtained a large amount of customer data, including the phone numbers of cellular network and landline customers, as well as the call and text message records for as long as six months from May 1, 2022 to October 31, 2022.
It is reported that AT&T negotiated through a middleman named Reddington, who acted on behalf of a member of the ShinyHunters hacker organization.
The hacker initially demanded $1 million (currently about 7.282 million RMB), and after negotiation AT&T finally paid less than $400,000. The hacker then provided a video of about seven minutes to prove that they had deleted these data.
A spokesperson for AT&T refused to answer whether the company paid the ransom, and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice also refused to comment on the news.
AT&T has nearly 115 million customers, and the US federal law enforcement agency said that the incident may endanger national security or public safety .