Lawsuit Alleges Telecommunications Giant Failed to Adequately Secure Its Customers’ Data and to Timely Notify its Customers and Former Customers of the Breach

Gibbs Law Group has filed a class action lawsuit against AT&T Mobility LLC and AT&T, Inc. for a massive data breach affecting over 70 million current and former customers. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of all individuals who had sensitive personal information compromised in the breach, including Social Security numbers and account passcodes. The lawsuit charges AT&T with failing to use adequate safeguards that would have detected and prevented the breach, failing to notify victims of the breach in a timely manner, and failing to exercise sufficient control over its third-party partners’ data. Attorneys at Gibbs Law Group are reviewing potential claims on behalf of additional victims who were affected by the AT&T data breach.

Received a data breach notice from AT&T? Contact our data breach attorneys by calling 510-974-7441 or visiting our website: AT&T Data Breach Class Action Lawsuit.

Although the breach was first uncovered in 2021, AT&T failed to acknowledge the breach had occurred until the data was made freely available on the dark web in March of 2024. Despite AT&T being the largest provider of telephone services in the country, the wireless company apparently still cannot identify exactly how, when, or where the massive breach occurred, according to its own website.

AT&T breach victims are reporting deep concerns about this breach because the type of information likely exposed, including addresses and Social Security numbers, is difficult for a person to change, unlike information such as credit card numbers. This personal data can also be sold for high values on the black market. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), hackers may wait to use stolen data to commit identity fraud over a year after it is obtained, and fraudulent use of data may continue for years after a breach.

This is not the first time AT&T has experienced a massive data breach. In 2023, it reported that 9 million of its customers’ information had been taken when one of its third-party vendors was breached. And in 2014, AT&T settled an FCC investigation into privacy violations for $25 million after around 280,000 customers’ names and full or partial SSNs were leaked.

“We are hearing from AT&T’s victims across the country who are struggling to protect their sensitive information,” said Linda Lam, partner at Gibbs Law Group. “Although AT&T has provided minimal information to victims about the breach, Gibbs Law Group will continue to investigate who was affected and will work to hold the company accountable.”

About Gibbs Law Group

Gibbs Law Group is a nationwide leader in class action lawsuits seeking to hold corporations accountable for large-scale data breaches. It has prosecuted some of the largest privacy cases in the country, and the firm’s attorneys have received numerous awards for their privacy and data breach work, including “Cybersecurity & Privacy MVP,” “Top Cybersecurity and Privacy Attorneys Under 40,” and “Titans of the Plaintiffs Bar.”

The firm achieved a historic $1.5 billion settlement from Equifax in 2019, on behalf of 147 million consumers whose Social Security numbers and other private data were exposed in a breach. Described by the court as “the largest and most comprehensive recovery in a data breach in U.S. history by several orders of magnitude,” the settlement also required Equifax to spend over $1 billion in data security technology and to make comprehensive security reforms. Previously, the firm negotiated a $115 million settlement in the Anthem data breach, the largest data breach settlement at the time, after approximately 80 million personal records were compromised in a massive data breach of the health insurance giant.

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