Criminals 'likely going to capitalize on this'; Why AT&T breach is so worrying

What does the AT&T breach mean for you?

More than a hundred million people were impacted by the latest data breach announced by AT&T, one of the country's biggest telecommunication companies.

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (FOX 2) - Eye-popping in its size and severity, but less surprising that it happened in the first place, more than a hundred million people were impacted by a data breach announced by AT&T this Friday.

It includes those who used the provider from mid-to-late 2022. And the scope of the data that hackers got access to is tough to understate.

"We’re talking about very sensitive information that was involved here," said Flow Specialty's David Derigiotis. "This is data that the government typically needs a court order, a subpoena, a search warrant to get access to. Now some bad actors have gotten a hold of it."

Derigiotis works as president of brokerage and head of insurance at the firm.

He said the breach is all the more notable because of a separate hack that AT&T announced earlier this year.

"It’s also important to recall that in March of this year AT&T did announce an unrelated separate data breach that did involve all of our names, home addresses, social security numbers, and it’s not out of the question that those two data sets could not be mapped together," he said.

The Federal Communications Commission issued a statement on the social media platform X: "We have an ongoing investigation into the AT&T breach and we're coordinating with our law enforcement partners."

The breach includes the call and text message records from mid-to-late 2022 of AT&T cellphone customers and some non-AT&T customers. Compromised data also includes the telephone numbers of nearly all of AT&T's cellular customers and the customers of wireless providers that use the AT&T network.

The scary part isn't just the breach - but what criminals online might do with the available information.

"Other criminal organizations are likely going to capitalize on this, so be on the lookout for other types of phishing or any type of e-mail that you get unsolicited," said Derigiotis. "I think others will be coming after all of us."