(Reuters) – FBI officials have issued a warning indicating that hackers who breached AT&T’s system last year may have obtained several months’ worth of call and text logs from agents, leading to an urgent initiative aimed at protecting the identities of confidential informants, as reported by Bloomberg News on Thursday.
The breach, suspected to have affected all FBI devices utilizing the bureau’s AT&T public safety service, exposed agents’ mobile phone numbers along with the numbers they had communicated with via calls and texts, based on a document examined by Bloomberg and discussions with a current and a former law enforcement official.
Last July, AT&T disclosed that the company experienced a significant hacking event where data from approximately 109 million customer accounts containing call and text records from 2022 was illicitly accessed in April.
FBI authorities notified agents nationwide that their usage details on the telecom provider’s network were likely part of billions of records stolen, the report stated. Although the compromised records did not reveal the actual content of communications, they had the potential to link investigators to their confidential sources, the report noted.
In response to the situation, an FBI spokesperson informed Reuters that the agency holds a serious obligation to safeguard the identities and safety of confidential human sources, who provide crucial information daily to ensure the safety of the American public, often putting themselves at risk.
In a subsequent communication, the spokesperson underscored the FBI’s duty to protect the identity of any individual who reaches out to the agency and shares information.
AT&T did not provide immediate comment to Reuters. A company representative informed Bloomberg that AT&T collaborated closely with law enforcement to minimize the impact on government operations following the theft of customer data.
This breach adds to broader concerns surrounding cyber-espionage activities directed at U.S. telecom networks. On January 10, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan revealed that the U.S. had taken countermeasures in response to cyber-espionage operations linked to China targeting U.S. telecom companies.
Leading U.S. telecom firms Verizon and AT&T acknowledged last year that their networks had been subject to cyber attacks but assured that they were currently secure as they cooperated with the U.S. government and law enforcement agencies.
(Reporting by Surbhi Misra in Bengaluru and AJ Vicens in Detroit; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Alistair Bell)
