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AT&T to pay $13 million to settle FCC probe over cloud data breach
AT&T has agreed to pay $13 million to settle a federal investigation into whether the mobile phone service provider failed to protect customer information in connection with a data breach last year, the Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday.
The FCC’s probe focused on how AT&T’s privacy, cybersecurity and vendor management practices may have played a role in the January 2023 breach, in which hackers penetrated the company’s cloud system. The breach exposed data belonging to nearly 9 million wireless customers.
As part of the settlement, AT&T entered a consent decree that requires the telecommunications giant to enhance its data governance practices, increase its supply chain integrity, and ensure appropriate processes and procedures in handling sensitive data.
Before the cyberattack, AT&T relied on a third-party vendor to host customer data. The user information exposed in the hack, including the number of lines on a customer’s account and billing information from 2015 through 2017, should have been deleted well before the breach, according to the FCC.
“The Communications Act makes clear that carriers have a duty to protect the privacy and security of consumer data, and that responsibility takes on new meaning for digital age data breaches,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement. “Carriers must take additional precautions given their access to sensitive information, and we will remain vigilant in ensuring that’s the case no matter which provider a customer chooses.
FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Loyaan A. Egal also said telecom firms “have an obligation to reduce the attack surface and entry points that threat actors seek to exploit in order to access sensitive customer data.”
AT&T has been subject to subsequent breaches, including an April cyberattack it disclosed in July in which hackers “nearly all” of its cellular customers’ text and call records for a six-month period between May 1, 2022 to Oct. 31, 2022.
At least 11 employees were taken to hospitals and residents were urged to shelter in place on Tuesday after an explosion at a Louisville, Kentucky, business.
The Louisville Metro Emergency Services reported on social media a “hazardous materials incident” at 1901 Payne St., in Louisville. The address belongs to a facility operated by Givaudan Sense Colour, a manufacturer of food colorings for soft drinks and other products, according to officials and online records.
Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said emergency teams responded to the blast around 3 p.m. News outlets reported that neighbors heard what sounded like an explosion coming from the business. Overhead news video footage showed an industrial building with a large hole in its roof.
WLKY-TV
“The cause at this point of the explosion is unknown,” Greenberg said in a news conference. No one died in the explosion, he added.
Greenberg said officials spoke to employees inside the plant. “They have initially conveyed that everything was normal activity when the explosion occurred,” he said.
The Louisville Fire Department said in a post on the social platform X that multiple agencies were responding to a “large-scale incident.”
The Louisville Metro Emergency Services first urged people within a mile of the business to shelter in place, but that order was lifted in the afternoon. An evacuation order for the two surrounding blocks around the site of the explosion was still in place Tuesday afternoon.
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A rare square 37-carat emerald owned by the Aga Khan fetched nearly $9 million at auction in Geneva on Tuesday, making it the world’s most expensive green stone.
Sold by Christie’s, the Cartier diamond and emerald brooch, which can also be worn as a pendant, dethrones a piece of jewelry made by the fashion house Bulgari, which Richard Burton gave as a wedding gift to fellow actor Elizabeth Taylor, as the most precious emerald.
In 1960, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan commissioned Cartier to set the emerald in a brooch with 20 marquise-cut diamonds for British socialite Nina Dyer, to whom he was briefly married.
Dyer then auctioned off the emerald to raise money for animals in 1969.
FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images
By chance that was Christie’s very first such sale in Switzerland on the shores of Lake Geneva, with the emerald finding its way back to the 110th edition this year.
It was bought by jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels before passing a few years later into the hands of Harry Winston, nicknamed the “King of Diamonds.”
“Emeralds are hot right now, and this one ticks all the boxes,” said Christie’s EMEA Head of Jewellery Max Fawcett. “…We might see an emerald of this quality come up for sale once every five or six years.”
Also set with diamonds, the previous record-holder fetched $6.5 million at an auction of part of Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor’s renowned jewelry collection in New York.
