SAN FRANCISCO: A hacker who claims to have stolen sensitive call and text logs from AT&T Inc, says they were paid about US$400,000 to erase the data trove.
An analysis of a bitcoin wallet address provided by the hacker showed a transaction in mid-May that analysts said aligned with an extortion payment.
A person familiar with the ransomware negotiations, who asked not to be named to discuss confidential matters, confirmed the payment from AT&T to the hacker. Whether AT&T used an intermediary to pay hackers wasn’t immediately clear.
An AT&T spokesperson declined to comment on whether the company paid a ransom to contain fallout from a hack that potentially exposed a huge cache of call and text logs from nearly all its wireless customers during a six-month period in 2022.
The scope and details of the data, including some location information, presents national security risks, with some experts noting that the size of the alleged ransom payment appeared remarkably low compared to other recent high-profile extortion events.
The breach also is one of numerous compromises tied to a security incident at the data analysis software provider Snowflake Inc, and that company continues to deal with reputational fallout from the matter. — Bloomberg
