For the second time since June, AT&T has acknowledged that it has been hit by an insider data breach. The telecom giant is warning consumers that an employee, who has since been fired, illegally accessed the personal information of some of its users, making off with Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers.
In a letter sent to the Vermont attorney general earlier this month, AT&T officials said that employee breached its systems in August and was able to access the account information of AT&T customers. AT&T did not indicate in the letter how many customers in Vermont had been affected or if people in other states were also involved.
“Additionally, while accessing your account, the employee would have been able to view your Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI), without proper authorization,” said Michael Chiarmonte, director of finance billing operations at AT&T, in a letter to the Vermont AG. “CPNI is information related to the telecommunications services you purchased from us.”
Chiarmonte apologized for the “incident” in the letter and said that the employee responsible for the breach no longer works for AT&T. “Simply stated, this is not the way we conduct business,” he said. The company did not offer any further explanation.
Not the First Insider Breach
In June, AT&T confirmed another data breach, saying three employees of one of its vendors accessed some of its customer accounts without proper authorization. AT&T did not disclose the number of accounts or what information was breached at that time.
“This is completely counter to the way we require our vendors to conduct business,” AT&T said in a published statement about that breach. “We know our customers count on us and those who support our business to act with integr
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