Canada arrests hacker allegedly behind massive AT&T data breach

Canada arrests hacker allegedly behind massive AT&T data breach

Earlier this year, AT&T confirmed it suffered a massive data breach in 2022 that impacted “nearly all” of its customers. Now, Canadian authorities have arrested a man suspected of being behind the breach.

Alexander “Connor” Moucka was taken into custody on October 30th following a request from the U.S., as reported by Bloomberg. However, the charges against Moucka weren’t immediately available as extradition requests are considered confidential. Two people familiar with the hack who spoke with Bloomberg on the condition of anonymity, identified Moucka as the person behind the hack.

The hack targeted as many as 165 customers of Snowflake, a cloud data company, including U.S. carrier AT&T and ticket seller Live Nation. Impacted companies disclosed the breach in June and July of 2024. In some cases, companies reported that the hacker (or hackers, as there may be others involved), attempted to extort them by threatening to sell their data.

Bloomberg reports it spoke with someone claiming to be behind the hack via Telegram. The person said they expected to get as much as $20 million USD (roughly $27.9 million CAD) for the full data set. However, there’s no evidence yet that the data was sold.

Header image credit: Shutterstock

Source: Engadget, Bloomberg

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