AT&T reports that a widespread outage that began early yesterday morning and was later resolved was caused by software. update.
It had previously been suggested that this could be the result of a cyber attack, but although it is said there is “no evidence of malicious activity”; both the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are currently investigating …
Widespread AT&T shutdown
The power outage, which affected at least tens of thousands of customers in the United States, first became known early Thursday morning.
This included the inability to make emergency calls, with several 911 centers reporting that users were unable to connect.
There was speculation that other networks were affected, but as we suspected, this reflected failed attempts make a call. to AT&T numbers.
Software update, not cyber attack, company says
When AT&T first announced that the daytime outage had been resolved, it did not provide any explanation as to how it happened. This has led to speculation that this may have been a cyberattack intended to blackmail the company.
However, AT&T told ABC News that this was not the case.
The outage was not a cyber attack, but was caused by “an application and execution of a faulty process used in expanding our network.”
ABC sources say it was a software update that went wrong, and it wasn't no external entity was involved. Incompetence, not conspiracy.
But the DHS and FBI are investigating
US security officials found “no signs of malicious activity”; – but despite this, both the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are investigating.
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) reported confidentially a note obtained by ABC News stating that “the cause of the outage is unknown and there are no signs of malicious activity.” CISA is the DHS agency tasked with monitoring cyber threats.
The FCC has contacted AT&T to determine what caused the outage, according to National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby.
Kirby said reporters Thursday afternoon that DHS and the FBI are also looking into the outage and are working with the tech industry and network providers to see what can be done — from a federal perspective — to step up their investigative efforts to figure out what happened here.”
“The point is that we don't have all the answers,” He said. “We're working very hard to see if we can get to the bottom of what exactly happened.”
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