AT&T Apologizes for iPad Security SNAFU
PrintWhat do you do if a security screw-up leads to over 114,000 email addresses being exposed, including those registered to politicians, celebrities, military personnel, and other prominent figures? You apologize, of course, and take refuge in your exclusivity contract, if you have one (as AT&T does).
"Recently there was an issue that affected some of our customers with AT&T 3G service for iPad resulting in the release of their customer email addresses," AT&T's Dorothy Attwood stated in an email to its customers. "I am writing to let you know that no other information was exposed and the matter has been resolved. We apologize for the incident and any inconvenience it may have caused. Rest assured, you can continue to use your AT&T 3G service on your iPad with confidence."
In the email, Attwood blamed the incident on malicious hackers who exploited a function designed to make the iPad's log-in process faster by pre-populating an AT&T authentication page with the email address used to register a user's iPad for 3G services.
"AT&T acted quickly to protect your information – and we promise to keep working around the clock to keep your information safe," Attwood continued. "Thank you very much for your understanding, and for being an AT&T customer."
As if those who want to pair Apple's iPad with 3G service have a choice (actually, they do, but it requires jailbreaking, tethering to a smartphone, or using a mobile hotspot device like Verizon's MiFi).
Image Credit: icanhascheezburger.com
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Neon Samurai
June 15, 2010 at 5:32am
"malicious hackers who exploited a function designed to make the iPad's log-in process faster"
Let me paraphrase:
Security researchers discovered our poor programing and lack of QA processes in public facing code then reported it too us and waited until it was fixed before public disclosure that will benefit our customers and the future of web hosted centralized computing. We would like to thank these ethical hackers, as the majority are, for bringing this failure of our development processes to our attention before it was widely exploited by those with criminals. We would normally try to attack and discredit such researchers through mass media and litigation but we are truly sorry for not catching this one within our several layers of internal and third party testing and have therefor opted for complete honesty with our current and potential customers.
(oh wait.. sorry.. they opted for "try to attack and discredit such researchers through mass media and litigation".. my bad)
Shadai
June 14, 2010 at 12:38pm
Rest assured, new commericals featuring star Luke Wilson are coming. They will continue to address the speed of our 3G and coverage of EDGE and not the other way around.
quickone
June 14, 2010 at 9:22am
"evil hackers broke in and wreaked havoc, we came in and
valiantly were your savior" PR for, "Our shits weak, good thing you signed a 2 year contract and can only use your hardware with us"
~~The difference between insanity and genius is merely succes~~
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