AT&T failed to ensure that a third-party vendor adequately protected the telecom carrier's customers, regulators say.

This week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has reached a settlement with telco giant AT&T, fining them $13 million for their lack of oversight over customers’ data security. Back in January 2023, bad actors gained access to the data of 8.9 million AT&T customers via a cyberattack on an unnamed third-party cloud vendor.

AT&T Inc. agreed to pay $13 million to settle an investigation by the US Federal Communications Commission into whether the telecommunications company failed to protect customer data that was stolen when a cloud vendor was hacked last year.

According to the FCC, AT&T failed to ensure that the vendor adequately protected customer information and properly disposed of it as required by their contract. The data breach happened years after the vendor's contract with AT&T had ended. It was a ...

The settlement with the Federal Communications Commission resolves an investigation of a cyberattack that saw almost 9 million customer records exposed.