AT&T Paid Hacker $370,000 to Delete Stolen Customer Data

In a surprising turn of events, AT&T paid a hacker $370,000 to delete stolen customer data. The payment was made in bitcoin and was facilitated by a security researcher. The hacker, who was reportedly a member of the ShinyHunters group, deleted the data from a cloud server and provided video proof of the deletion. However, it's unclear if this means the breach is fully resolved, as digital data can easily be copied.

The breach, which was revealed in April, exposed the call and text records of nearly all AT&T customers, including phone numbers and the number of calls made. AT&T has since beefed up its cybersecurity measures and is working with law enforcement to investigate the incident.

The hacker who obtained the ransom claims that the data was initially stolen by John Binns, a known hacker who was arrested in Turkey earlier this year. The hacker also claims that they were able to access the cloud server where the data was stored and deleted it from there.

While AT&T has taken steps to resolve the breach, questions remain about the security of its data. An unrelated leak in March exposed data belonging to approximately 73 million current and former AT&T customers, including Social Security numbers and encrypted passwords.