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AT&T says criminals stole phone records of 'nearly all' customers in data breach

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Re: AT&T says criminals stole phone records of 'nearly all' customers in data breach

#121

Post by noodlesUK »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #113
graybeardhacker wrote: post #104

Freeze your credit people! It's super easy. It's not a perfect fix but it's so trivial to do and it will help. https://www.usa.gov/credit-freeze You can unfreeze through an app whenever you want/need to.

Is there any reason not to keep credit frozen permanently , only unfreezing it when you're making a large purchase that requires it?

Unfortunately it isn’t an option in every country. In the U.S., you can freeze your credit for free, but in the UK, you can’t. I think we should get rid of the CRAs entirely, but that’s a conversation for another day.

Re: AT&T says criminals stole phone records of 'nearly all' customers in data breach

#122

Post by lesuorac »

criddell wrote: post #92
jen20 wrote: post #15

This is the kind of breach that really should be company-ending, but will sadly instead likely result in a slap on the wrist. It is high time for the US to have a privacy law with real teeth, and to enforce it with vigour.

Or maybe it's time to turn software engineering into an actual engineering profession. If the people responsible for designing and maintaining the AT&T system were "real" engineers, they could be sued for malpractice or even lose their license to practice.

Snowflake still works though. What civil engineer has been sued because somebody jumped off their bridge? You get sued when the bridge collapses not when somebody uses it for an unintended action.

Re: AT&T says criminals stole phone records of 'nearly all' customers in data breach

#123

Post by dopylitty »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #54
hypeatei wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our economic system is at odds with security because we're trying to "get by" as cheap as possible. That doesn't bode well for protection of users' data.

During the last decade, ATT’s leaders decided to burn tens of billions of dollars by overpaying for obviated businesses like DirecTV and Time Warner. I can only imagine the quality of mobile and fiber networking we could have had if that money was spent on telecommunications. And maybe they would have spent a few million on having proper security.

Not only that they blew $8 billion/year on dividends that could've gone into the business or to employees instead of being extracted and given to people who have nothing to do with the business.

Re: AT&T says criminals stole phone records of 'nearly all' customers in data breach

#125

Post by dylan604 »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #96
pylua wrote: post #75

And earlier this year my ssn was on the dark web due to their leak (or vendor). One year of monitoring? No, I’m going to need it for life. Security is not a concern. There is no real incentive to change the status quo. Make them pay for monitoring indefinitely .

I never understood the american secrecy about SSN... it should be a "username" not a "password"... In my country you can calculate our own national id (mix of date of birth, autoincreasing number by each birth that day + 1 checksum number), and if you do/have any kind of personal business, your personal tax number has to be written everywhere, on every receipt you hand out or anything you buy as a business. Somehow k…

Even the US gov't gave up on the notion the SSN was not to be used as an identifier. My dad's SS card had a phrase printed on it saying so. My SS card did not have that text.

Re: AT&T says criminals stole phone records of 'nearly all' customers in data breach

#126

Post by zsdfgyn »

Key point of the article:

"Snowflake allows its corporate customers, like tech companies and telcos, to analyze huge amounts of customer data in the cloud. It’s not clear for what reason AT&T was storing customer data in Snowflake, and the spokesperson would not say."

Finally journalists are asking the question why customer data must be stored with third party cloud providers. AT&T is a long way from Bell Labs, shame on them.

Re: AT&T says criminals stole phone records of 'nearly all' customers in data breach

#127

Post by troyvit »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #113
graybeardhacker wrote: post #104

Freeze your credit people! It's super easy. It's not a perfect fix but it's so trivial to do and it will help. https://www.usa.gov/credit-freeze You can unfreeze through an app whenever you want/need to.

Is there any reason not to keep credit frozen permanently , only unfreezing it when you're making a large purchase that requires it?

That's what I do. It also slows my roll. It's an extra step I have to take before making that large purchase or applying for anything that requires a credit check.

Re: AT&T says criminals stole phone records of 'nearly all' customers in data breach

#128

Post by k4j8 »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #113
graybeardhacker wrote: post #104

Freeze your credit people! It's super easy. It's not a perfect fix but it's so trivial to do and it will help. https://www.usa.gov/credit-freeze You can unfreeze through an app whenever you want/need to.

Is there any reason not to keep credit frozen permanently , only unfreezing it when you're making a large purchase that requires it?

Keeping your credit frozen permanently is a great idea. Some of the credit agencies even encourage this with features such as a temporary unfreeze of your credit for a few days/weeks and then back to the permanently frozen state.

Re: AT&T says criminals stole phone records of 'nearly all' customers in data breach

#130

Post by EarthLaunch »

criddell wrote: post #78
JohnMakin wrote: post #19

So where/what is my compensation? (I know there is no recourse). When no one is on the hook for secure practices, like enabling MFA on your effin data stores that contain massive amounts of customer PII, this is the result. Not even an apology, just report it and move on. woops! those gosh darned cyber criminals.

If you go to court and ask for compensation you would likely be asked to show harm. Could you?

Is there no harm, or is there harm that is hard to show in court?
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