Published February 24, 2024
AT&T said Friday that the 12-hour-long outage to its U.S. cellphone network Thursday didn’t appear to be caused by a cyberattack, blaming it on an “incorrect process.”
On Thursday, numerous customers reported that AT&T and Cricket, its subsidiary, were down for hours. Some 75,000 customers reported to DownDetector.com they were without cellphone service, texting, or internet access across the country, although that number is likely quite higher.
“Based on our initial review, we believe that today’s outage was caused by the application and execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network, not a cyber attack,” AT&T said in a statement Friday.
The company did not reveal the exact cause of the service disruption. The firm said Thursday that the disruption was fixed.
Amid the outage, iPhone users with AT&T saw an “SOS” message and were told that they could only make emergency or Wi-Fi calls. Android users saw a similar message that they could only make emergency calls.
But some local police and sheriff’s departments wrote on social media that some AT&T users were not able to make 911 calls, while some law enforcement officials, who were AT&T customers too, couldn’t use their devices.
The Federal Communications Commission contacted the FBI and other agencies about the outage, White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters Thursday. The FBI said it communicated with AT&T, saying in a statement that “should we learn of any malicious activity we will respond accordingly.”
Before the outage was resolved, AT&T urged customers to connect to Wi-Fi to use their phones. Wi-Fi calling is a built-in feature on most Android devices and iPhones and can be turned on under the phone’s settings.
“Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning. We are working urgently to restore service to them. We encourage the use of Wi-Fi calling until service is restored,” AT&T said in a statement.
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SOURCE: www.zerohedge.com
RELATED: AT&T Reveals Cause of Major Outage, Not Caused by Cyberattack
Published February 24, 2024
AT&T said Friday that the 12-hour-long outage to its U.S. cellphone network Thursday didn’t appear to be caused by a cyberattack.
AT&T said Friday that the 12-hour-long outage to its U.S. cellphone network Thursday didn’t appear to be caused by a cyberattack, blaming it on an “incorrect process.”
On Thursday, numerous customers reported that AT&T and Cricket, its subsidiary, were down for hours. Some 75,000 customers reported to DownDetector.com they were without cellphone service, texting, or internet access across the country, although that number is likely quite higher.
“Based on our initial review, we believe that today’s outage was caused by the application and execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network, not a cyber attack,” AT&T said in a statement Friday.
The company did not reveal the exact cause of the service disruption. The firm said Thursday that the disruption was fixed.
Amid the outage, iPhone users with AT&T saw an “SOS” message and were told that they could only make emergency or Wi-Fi calls. Android users saw a similar message that they could only make emergency calls.
But some local police and sheriff’s departments wrote on social media that some AT&T users were not able to make 911 calls, while some law enforcement officials, who were AT&T customers too, couldn’t use their devices.
READ FULL ARTICLE
SOURCE: www.theepochtimes.com
RELATED: AT&T restores service after hours of outage
