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AT&T Paid a Hacker $370,000 to Delete Stolen Phone Records


A security researcher who assisted with the deal says he believes the only copy of the complete dataset of call and text records of “nearly all” AT&T customers has been wiped—but some risks may remain.

The hacker, who is part of the notorious ShinyHunters hacking group that has stolen data from a number of victims through unsecured Snowflake cloud storage accounts, tells WIRED that AT&T paid the ransom in May. Binns was indicted in 2022 on 12 counts related to the 2021 hack of T-Mobile "and theft and sale of sensitive files and information" that involved data on more than 40 million people. Last October, in the T-Mobile case, Binns wrote to the US District Court in Seattle and said he believed his actions were affected by a chip that had been implanted in his brain when he was an infant.

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