You'll recall that last week there was a bit of a stink made over personal details belonging to iPad 3G owners recieving data services from AT&T. According to the New York Times, over the weekend, AT&T spent the weekend apologizing to a horde of disgruntled iPad 3G users who suffered a data breach.
The company's Chief Privacy Officer, Dorothy Attwood, addressed the security breach, apologizing to the 114,000 AT&T customers who had their e-mail addresses and names revealed as a result of an exploit on the company's website. Attwood laid the blame for the breach at the feet of Goatse Security, a group of “unauthorized computer 'hackers' maliciously [exploiting] a function designed to make your iPad log-in process faster.”
How did the breach occur?
According to Attwood, Goatse Security used the UCC-ID that is on each iPad 3G to pinged AT&T's 3G login page. The login page would then consequently return an e-mail address associated with that iPad 3G. In order to snag all 114,000 e-mail addresses, the hackers wrote a script that would ping the page with a series of numbers repeatedly.
The full text of the Attwood's email is as follows:
Dear Valued AT&T Customer,
Recently there was an issue that affected some of our customers with AT&T 3G service for iPad resulting in the release of their customer e-mail addresses. I am writing to let you know that no other information was exposed and the matter has been resolved. We apologize for the incident and any inconvenience it may have caused. Rest assured, you can continue to use your AT&T 3G service on your iPad with confidence.
Here’s some additional detail:
On June 7 we learned that unauthorized computer “hackers” maliciously exploited a function designed to make your iPad log-in process faster by pre-populating an AT&T authentication page with the e-mail address you used to register your iPad for 3G service. The self-described hackers wrote software code to randomly generate numbers that mimicked serial numbers of the AT&T SIM card for iPad – called the integrated circuit card identification (ICC-ID) – and repeatedly queried an AT&T web address. When a number generated by the hackers matched an actual ICC-ID, the authentication page log-in screen was returned to the hackers with the e-mail address associated with the ICC-ID already populated on the log-in screen.
The hackers deliberately went to great efforts with a random program to extract possible ICC-IDs and capture customer e-mail addresses. They then put together a list of these e-mails and distributed it for their own publicity.
As soon as we became aware of this situation, we took swift action to prevent any further unauthorized exposure of customer email addresses. Within hours, AT&T disabled the mechanism that automatically populated the e-mail address. Now, the authentication page log-in screen requires the user to enter both their e-mail address and their password.
I want to assure you that the e-mail address and ICC-ID were the only information that was accessible. Your password, account information, the contents of your e-mail, and any other personal information were never at risk. The hackers never had access to AT&T communications or data networks, or your iPad. AT&T 3G service for other mobile devices was not affected.
While the attack was limited to e-mail address and ICC-ID data, we encourage you to be alert to scams that could attempt to use this information to obtain other data or send you unwanted email. You can learn more about phishing by visiting the AT&T website.
AT&T takes your privacy seriously and does not tolerate unauthorized access to its customers’ information or company websites. We will cooperate with law enforcement in any investigation of unauthorized system access and to prosecute violators to the fullest extent of the law.
AT&T acted quickly to protect your information – and we promise to keep working around the clock to keep your information safe. Thank you very much for your understanding, and for being an AT&T customer.
Sincerely,
Dorothy Attwood
Senior Vice President, Public Policy and Chief Privacy Officer for AT&T
