Number of Snowflake hackers increases with theft of text and call data from AT&T

(Bloomberg) — AT&T Inc. said thieves stole half a year’s worth of calling and texting data from virtually its entire wireless user base, the most comprehensive breach yet in a campaign that attracted as many as 165 customers. of software vendors. Snowflake Inc.

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Snowflake said in June that hackers had launched a “targeted” effort against its customers and blamed its customers for not taking adequate steps to protect their data. But the data analytics software company is suffering “reputational damage” from the hack, Raymond James analyst Frank G. Louthan wrote.

A Snowflake spokesperson confirmed Friday that the AT&T incident was connected to the hack that affected other customers, including Live Nation Inc.’s Ticketmaster and LendingTree.

The hacking group allegedly responsible has suspected members in North America and Turkey, according to cyber firm Mandiant, a unit of Alphabet Inc.’s Google Cloud.

The string of Snowflake-related hacks appears worse than initially feared and will likely cause some slowdown in business in the near term, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mandeep Singh wrote.

The hack will likely be less severe for Snowflake’s position than breaches at companies like Okta Inc. and SolarWinds Corp., since Snowflake’s core function is not security-oriented software, said Gil Luria, an analyst at DA Davidson & Co.

While other Snowflake customers have lost information such as customer email addresses, experts said AT&T’s compromised call and text message data, as well as location information about some customers, pose national security risks. The data can reveal important details about people who conduct sensitive communications, such as politicians, executives, activists and journalists.

Customers use Snowflake to store and analyze large sets of information, like a telecommunications company to find out when it receives its highest call volume.

For More: FCC Says It’s Investigating Massive AT&T Customer Data Breach

Hackers have tried to extort Snowflake customers out of up to $5 million each, although so far they have made less than $1 million in total payments from no more than five companies, according to two people familiar with the matter.

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Snowflake said its own systems were not breached outside of an employee’s demo account. The company has since introduced new tools for monitoring customers’ cybersecurity and said it plans to enable multi-factor authentication by default for all customers.

Matthew Hedberg, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, wrote that these are “positive steps” toward maintaining customer confidence. He added that he spoke with the company’s management, who told him they had a “great relationship” with AT&T.

Other recent victims of the Snowflake hacking campaign included luxury retailer Neiman Marcus. The company said in a statement that it has notified approximately 64,000 people that their personal information was stolen after an unauthorized party gained access to a Snowflake platform.

A Snowflake spokesperson confirmed Friday that the company has not seen any unauthorized access to customer accounts since early June, when it said it was closing its investigation into the hacks.

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