The U.S. Department of Justice has identified two individuals responsible for hacking into AT&T’s systems and stealing around 50 billion customer call and text records. Connor Moucka and John Binns have been indicted for their roles in the data breach, which is part of a larger hack targeting Snowflake, a third-party cloud data storage and analytics company. The stolen data includes details about who contacted whom via phone or text but does not contain the content of the communications.
AT&T had previously notified approximately 110 million customers of the breach, but the total number of stolen records was unknown until the recent indictment. The document refers to “Victim-2,” describing it as a major U.S. telecommunications company breached around April 14. This aligns with AT&T’s previous disclosure of learning about the hack on April 19, strongly suggesting Victim-2 is indeed AT&T.
Snowflake breach linked to AT&T hack
Prosecutors allege that Moucka and Binns accessed billions of sensitive customer records and successfully extorted at least three victims for a total of 36 bitcoin (approximately $2.5 million when paid) between November 2023 and October 2024. Moucka, residing in Canada, used aliases such as “judische,” “catist,” and “waif,” while Binns, based in Turkey, was known as “irdev” and “j_irdev1337.”
The Snowflake hack led to data breaches at numerous companies using the platform, including Ticketmaster and more than 150 other corporations.
The hackers targeted various companies, stealing social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, passport details, and banking information. In some cases, they demanded ransoms, threatening to leak the stolen data if payments were not made. According to the indictment, AT&T paid a ransom to the hackers.
Neither AT&T nor the Department of Justice has commented on the matter. The recent revelation underscores the severity and breadth of the data breaches in the past months, highlighting the importance of robust cybersecurity measures to protect sensitive customer information.
