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FBI launches probe over AT&T's iPad breach

Summary: The Federal Bureau of Investigation has launched an investigation related to an iPad security breach that allowed hackers to use an AT&T security hole to obtain the e-mail addresses of 114,000 iPad owners, including many government officials.News reports are starting to surface about the investigation and early details make it unclear what, exactly, the FBI is investigating.

Sam Diaz

By Sam Diaz for Between the Lines |

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has launched an investigation related to an iPad security breach that allowed hackers to use an AT&T security hole to obtain the e-mail addresses of 114,000 iPad owners, including many government officials.

News reports are starting to surface about the investigation and early details make it unclear what, exactly, the FBI is investigating. A FBI spokesperson told the legal blog Main Justice that "the investigation is broad and not specific to the potential security threat from the use of the device by federal employees." The spokesperson said the FBI has not issued a warning to employees about their use of the device.

AT&T said in a statement that the feature that allowed the breach was turned off on Tuesday, a day before Gawker Media ran a detailed blog post about it. The only information that the breach allowed access to were e-mail addresses, but that the investigation was continuing.

The FBI told the Wall Street Journal that the investigation opened today and the it remains in the very early stages. The FBI would not comment specifically about what it is investigating.

Also see: The security and privacy ramifications of AT&T's iLeak

Topics: iPad, Government, Government US, Mobility, AT&T

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18 comments
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  • Well, I did dodge a bullet on this one.

    I don't have an iPhone or an iPad. I did have an old-fashioned prepaid cell phone that I rarely use.
    Grayson Peddie
    Reply Vote

    • RE: FBI launches probe over AT&T's iPad breach

      @Grayson Peddie - me too!
      DataFerret
      Reply Vote

    • RE: FBI launches probe over AT&T's iPad breach

      @Grayson Peddie
      Your point?
      ubiquitous one
      Reply Vote

  • iPad security breach; Not!

    This was an AT&T security breach, so why are you labeling it as an iPad security breach?
    RedVeg
    Reply Vote

    • RE: FBI launches probe over AT&T's iPad breach

      @RedVeg beause iPad is a hot keyword and is guaranteed to draw people to read the article
      KineticArtist
      Reply Vote

    • RE: FBI launches probe over AT&T's iPad breach

      @RedVeg Because it happened on the ipad. Just like all those things that just happened to happen on windows. No?
      eargasm
      Reply Vote

    • RE: FBI launches probe over AT&T's iPad breach

      @RedVeg You do understand that all things associated with owning an iPad, even things not administered by Apple, fall under a single umbrella, right? There's a supply chain of services for which Apple contracts with outside entitities. And Apple is ultimately reponsible to the customer for the failure of anything in the chain.
      bowened
      Reply Vote

    • RE: FBI launches probe over AT&T's iPad breach

      @RedVeg
      Because it was a breach of a database that has e-mail addresses of <b>iPad owners</b>, no one else. ****GASP!!!!**** Get over it.

      Imagine that, hackers trying to exploit a popular platform!!!!!!!
      tikigawd
      Reply Vote

      • If that's the case...

        ...then why isn't the FBI investigating Apple instead of AT&T? Hmm?<br><br>;)
        ubiquitous one
        Reply Vote

    • Because that's the only Platform it affected! :D

      @RedVeg These were white hat hackers (good guys) that discovered this. But who else from the Black Hat side discovered it first? :O .....yeah most likely people who bought 3G iPads at the very least will get spam'd out of their minds!

      But if the dark side of the hacker kingdom got this info Safari zero day exploits have been saved just for such an occasion. Why in the world do you think the FBI jumped on this so quickly for an investigation? Because many in the DOJ, NSA, Army, etc have iPads with names, email addresses and which specific iPad they owned breached!

      ICC-ID is a unique identifier of every single iPad device!
      By finding one of the first number sequences, they can then just punch in a list of consecutive units. Feed them into the server hole and hit a hacker jackpot of info that at the very least can be sold. YOUR Info if you were fool enough to buy one. All linked forever after by your AT&T Account Email address and your real name. So it just being an email address is a crock... O'shizt! lol...

      No doubt they should be having all their customers change their email address at least. Apple no doubt was involved in setting up AT&T's Prison Garden Walled iPad Servers. In that case they are responsible even in their own EULA stating that Apple will not give your private information to anyone!
      i2fun@...
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      • RE: FBI launches probe over AT&T's iPad breach

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  • RE: FBI launches probe over AT&T's iPad breach

    "AT&T said in a statement that the feature that allowed the breach was turned off on Tuesday"

    Huh? How can something that allows a breach of security, be classed as a "feature"?
    LeeC
    Reply Vote

    • RE: FBI launches probe over AT&T's iPad breach

      @LeeC It was an auto-fill feature added for convenience. When you enter your iPad 3G ID #, it auto-filled your email addresses. Always a tug of war between convenenience and security.
      Not sure what having someone's email address can do for you, though. Guess you could spam them to death or sign them up for daily emails from ilicit sites...
      mike_devlin@...
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      cstrathmore
      Reply Vote

  • then why isn't the FBI investigating Apple instead of AT&T? Hmm?

    @ ubiquitous one
    There is nothing in that article that says they are. In fact the 2nd paragraph says it is unclear what they are investigating.
    A. Noid
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