AT&T agreed to Pay $5,000 to Each Customer – $177 Million Data Breach Settlement Are you Eligible?

A U.S. judge has given initial approval to a $177 million settlement from AT&T after the telecom giant faced multiple data breaches in 2024.

These breaches exposed the personal details of millions of customers. The ruling was made by U.S. District Judge Ada Brown in Dallas, who said the agreement is fair and reasonable for those affected.

What Led to the Settlement?

In 2024, AT&T experienced two major data breaches that were made public in May and July. These breaches affected nearly all of AT&T’s customers. The data exposed included personal information and call logs.

One of the incidents involved around 109 million customer accounts, where data was illegally downloaded from AT&T’s cloud workspace on Snowflake’s platform. This included six months’ worth of call and text data from the year 2022.

In another case, a data set appeared on the dark web, which AT&T said likely came from as far back as 2019 or earlier.

This exposed data of around 7.6 million current users and 65.4 million former users. The personal information involved was never supposed to remain stored for that long, as per industry norms.

What Will Affected Customers Get?

As part of the class-action lawsuit settlement, AT&T has agreed to pay up to $2,500 or $5,000 to each affected customer—depending on the breach and if the customer can prove financial harm directly linked to it.

Once the direct loss payments are made, the remaining money will be divided among all other impacted customers whose data was exposed.

AT&T said they chose to settle to avoid long and expensive court battles. They expect the final approval by the end of 2025 and plan to start payments in early 2026.

FCC’s Separate Investigation and Past Penalty

Apart from this settlement, AT&T also agreed to pay ₹10.83 crore ($13 million) last year to close an investigation by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC). That case was about a 2023 breach that exposed data of 8.9 million AT&T wireless users.

The FCC said this data, from 2015 to 2017, should have been deleted years ago.

This settlement is one of the largest payouts by a telecom company for a data breach. It shows how serious the issue of data privacy has become in today’s digital age.

While customers who suffered financial harm may receive compensation, it also raises questions about how companies manage and secure user data. The incident is a wake-up call for businesses and users alike to be more aware and careful about digital safety.

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