Scary AT&T breach leaks up to 70 million Social Security numbers to the dark web

Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 138 points –
Scary AT&T breach leaks up to 70 million Social Security numbers to the dark web
macworld.com
14

All of your social security numbers into the dark web and all AT&T users get is a laughable $5 credit per account

I was an AT&T customer in 2001 but haven’t used them since and I’m guessing this leak will include my data as well. This is such crap. They ain’t offering me anything. They say it’s not impacting their operations but I don’t give a shit about their operations. It sounds like they covered it up for two weeks and are now trying to bury it. The government really has to start coming down hard on these asshats.

All those SSN’s were leaked a few years ago by equinox anyway.

Thanks, I hate it.

Why is AT&T even using Social Security numbers?

Credit checks

I haven’t been a customer for like ten years. And they only needed the ss number ten years before that. Why the hell did they retain that info after the credit check? Why the hell did they retain it after I stopped using their service?

Every major cell provider offering non pre-paid service does this. You run your credit when you open the account, but they can hold on to the info in that credit app indefinitely. Usually it's kept on file to make sure no one else attempts to open an account using your info. If a new app gets run with your social and they already have an account with that social, the new credit app gets flagged for review.

We need a GDPR equivalent, but US politicians aren’t interested in protecting individuals

We need identity to be disconnected from authorization so it hardly matters if your SSN leaks.

They’ll pay a fine of like $120M, appeal or have it waived down to $24M and a new law will be passed barring a class action or any further ramifications when it happens again.

Because they are both evil and incompetent.

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Just a note. The 19.2 million AT&T prepaid customer should NOT be affected because SSN is never collected to start or continue service.