AT&T customers faced a significant disruption in cellphone service on Thursday, lasting from the early morning until approximately 3 p.m. ET. The company attributed the outage to a technical error during network expansion, leading to service interruptions for thousands of users.
Before that, the company thought that the downtime was caused by a cyberattack.
AT&T Continues to Investigate What Went Wrong on the Outage
In response to the outage, both AT&T and federal agencies have launched investigations to determine the root cause. Initial assessments point to an incorrect process applied during network expansion. While AT&T has completed an initial review, further investigations are ongoing to prevent similar incidents in the future.
No Evidence of Cyberattack
Despite speculation, AT&T confirmed that the outage was not the result of a cyberattack. Collaborating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), AT&T is thoroughly investigating the incident to rule out any security breaches.
"We're being told that AT&T has no reason to think that this was a cyber-security incident. But again, I want to be careful. We won't know until an investigation has been completed," The White House's national security communications adviser John Kirby said in a report by USA Today.
Timeline of Restoration Efforts
The outage began in the early morning hours, with over 70,000 customers reporting service disruptions between 8 and 9 a.m. ET. While AT&T did not confirm the exact number of affected users, the company announced significant progress in restoring service by midday.
By 3:10 p.m. ET, AT&T reported that service had been fully restored to all impacted customers, marking the resolution of the widespread disruption, The Independent writes in its latest report.
At this point, AT&T continues to investigate the incident. Of course, the customers can expect transparency regarding the cause of the outage and measures taken to prevent future disruptions.
In other news, Scattered Spider and Alphv hacking groups claimed the responsibility behind the MGM Resorts cyberattack which took place in September.
Recent report said that the security incident contributed to nearly $100 million loss from its profit in the Q3 2023.
What's alarming is that some confidential data of transactions were stolen. The information including names, passport details, and birthdates are included.
It's note-worthy to know that only the personal details were affected and not any financial information pertaining to bank accounts or credit card information.
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