AT&T Sues to Make Up for their Lackluster Security
AT&T is going after the people who managed to gain access to customer phone records (emphasis mine):
AT& T Sues, Alleging Fraudulent Access to Customer Accounts
AT&T Corp. on Wednesday filed suit in federal court to unmask and halt the actions of 25 people who allegedly posed as customers to gain unauthorized online access to private phone records.
Some 2,500 customers' records were stolen, AT&T alleges in its civil complaint. The affected customers have been notified and access to their online accounts frozen, the company said.
Good for them. However, this response reminds me of a line from the meeting minutes of a recent Minneapolis Crime & Safety meeting:
"95% of the thefts have been from garages and cars where the doors have been left unlocked."
Isn't it embarassing that AT&T's customer's phone records were stolen by people simply posing as other customers? They weren't stolen by a super-hacker who found a hole into their database. They came through the front door, and were given access without proper authentication.
If the contents of my garage were stolen after I left it unlocked, I'd try to go after the thieves as well. But I'd sure feel like an idiot when filing the police report.
