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Friday, September 1, 2006
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When AT&T said in a press release this week that "unauthorized persons illegally hacked into a computer system and accessed personal data" from thousands of DSL customers, it wasn't telling the whole story.
Internal company documents show that the security breach was only the first step in a more elaborate scam that involved bogus e-mail being sent to AT&T customers that attempted to trick them into revealing additional info that could be used for widespread fraud or identity theft.
"We haven't seen anything like this before," acknowledged Walt Sharp, an AT&T spokesman.
The company says that individual customers were notified by e-mail -- real ones this time -- about the full scope of the scam. But myriad news accounts written off AT&T's press release failed to show how extensively the company's customers may have been duped.
The company said for public consumption that hackers had "accessed personal data, including credit card information, from several thousand customers who purchased DSL equipment through the company's online Web store."
It said the electronic break-in occurred last weekend and that AT&T technicians discovered the security breach "within hours." The company said its online DSL store was immediately shut down.
9:29:24 PM 
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© Copyright 2006 Paul Hardwick.
Last update: 10/1/06; 4:19:05 AM.
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