AT&T has reset the passcodes for roughly 7.6 million of its current customers after the codes were released on the dark web.According to TechCrunch who first reported the leak, the leak included 73 million current and former AT&T account holders. While only 7.6 million of those are still current account holders, 65.4 million passcodes for former account holders were also a part of the leak. The numbers were posted online earlier this month and appear to be from 2009.In a post on its Support page Saturday AT&T acknowledged that a number of AT&T passcodes have been compromised.“We are reaching out to all 7.6M impacted customers and have reset their passcodes. In addition, we will be communicating with current and former account holders with compromised sensitive personal information,” the statement reads.AT&T says its internal teams are currently working with cybersecurity experts to amaze the situation, and that the leak does not include personal financial information or call history. AT&T said it doesn’t know whether the data originated from AT&T or from one of its vendors. News of the leak initially surfaced earlier this month. In addition to the passcodes, the leaked data also includes customer names, home addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, and social security numbers.
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Customer’s passcodes serve as a second layer of defense against hackers and others who may want to access a user’s account without permission. AT&T typically requires an individual to provide their passcode whenever contacting the company about an account and before making any changes to the account.The company has plans to notify all 7.6 million customers whose passcodes were reset as a result of the hack as well as its former customers whose personal information was compromised by the attack.
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