Gary Killops

AT&T has released an apology to iPad users that were affected by the recent security breach in their system. They also have stated that the company intends on contacting all the iPad users who could have potentially been affected by this attack on their system. The FBI is currently investigating the event with AT&T’s full cooperation in an effort to find the hackers responsible for taking advantage of the hole in AT&T’s security system, and bring them to justice quickly.

Even with AT&T’s apology and assurances that they have fixed their security issues, plenty of iPad users are understandably furious at AT&T’s apparent lack of adequate security measures. The company is convinced that the only information that the hackers could have gained would be email addresses of the various users. Experts in this industry claim that this is more than enough information to cause serious harm for these users. It’s often possible that, with access to someone’s email account, a clever hacker can gain access to other information about that person.

The group responsible for this attack on AT&T’s security took advantage of customers that signed up for their 3G services. This hacker group, named Goatse Security, has been involved in other such security breaches with different Internet browsers in the past. Goatse Security was able to harvest approximately 114,000 different email addresses from various iPad users by exploiting a hole in the AT&T website.

The iPad users that have been affected by this security breach are notable individuals in both the public business world and in the United States military. These were the early-adopters of the iPad who subscribed to the 3G AT&T coverage as soon as the iPad 3G was released back on May 7th. Noteworthy individuals working in politics, media and the financial industry have all had their information exposed.

The FBI is taking this breach very seriously and is looking into all aspects of this event, including the potential national security breach that could come from the release the emails for various high-ranking military personnel. There has not been any information released relating to any attacks on the various email addresses that were harvested as a result of this breach., but the possible ramifications of the email addresses of high-ranking military officials falling into the wrong hands is cause for concern. The FBI is out to stop those responsible before any real harm can come out of their use of the stolen email addresses.