AT&T Breach Exposes 19,000 Identities

A security breach at AT&T has exposed personal information on over 19,000 people who shopped at the company's online store, the company confirmed Tuesday. According to a statement from AT&T, the leaked data included credit card numbers and occurred over the weekend, causing the company to shut down the store.

The break-in affected individuals who purchased DSL equipment online through AT&T. As a service to its customers, the company has both notified the credit card companies and would provide credit monitoring to those affected. The company is also in the process of notifying those who had their data accessed.

"We deeply regret this incident and we intend to pay for credit monitoring services for customers whose accounts have been impacted," AT&T chief piracy officer Priscilla Hill-Ardoin said in a statement. "We will work closely with law enforcement to bring these data thieves to account."

Incidences of data loss are becoming an increasing problem, according to third-party data. The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a non-profit consumer information and advocacy group, says that since February 2005, over 91 million records have been compromised by data breaches.

However, some say that most compromised data is never used in actual incidents of identity theft. A study released in December of last year indicated the level of the breach and how the data was lost contribute to the risk factor.

For example, the firm separated the incidents into two categories, "identity-level," where names and social security numbers were stolen, and "account-level," where account numbers were stolen, occasionally tied to accountholders. The study found that identity-level breaches pose the greatest risk.

Fraud experts with the firm ID Analytics, which commissioned the study, surmised that the reason for the low rate of misuse is likely due to the amount of time it takes to actually commit identity theft.