AT&T's Proposed Settlement of Data Breach Lawsuit Receives Preliminary Approval

Core Viewpoint - AT&T's proposed $177 million settlement for a class action lawsuit related to data breaches has received preliminary approval from a judge, addressing the exposure of personal information of tens of millions of customers [2][3]. Group 1: Settlement Details - The settlement will compensate affected customers with payments of either $2,500 or $5,000, depending on the incident, and remaining funds will be distributed to other customers whose personal information was accessed [3]. - AT&T denies responsibility for the criminal acts leading to the data breaches but agreed to the settlement to avoid the costs and uncertainties of prolonged litigation [3]. Group 2: Data Breach Context - The data breaches occurred in May 2024 and July 2024, exposing personal information of tens of millions of customers [2]. - The stolen records included telephone numbers that interacted with AT&T's wireless network but did not contain the content of calls or texts or personally identifiable information [4]. Group 3: Cybersecurity Incident Background - The data theft is believed to have originated from a prior breach involving Snowflake, a cloud storage and data warehousing vendor [5]. - In September 2024, AT&T settled with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for $13 million related to a January 2023 hack that compromised customer information from a vendor's cloud environment [6].