AT&T Releases Statement on Yesterday’s Outage, Denies Cyberattack Suspicion

Yesterday, a massive outage affected smartphone users throughout the country. Although some reported experiencing issues with other carriers, the majority of the reports come from AT&T. This included AT&T’s prepaid brands and MVNOs that used its networks. 

After the outage was first reported, T-Mobile and Verizon released individual statements that their networks were never affected. It turned out that their subscribers tried to get in touch with their friends on AT&T but couldn’t get through. This caused them to worry that their networks were also affected. 

The hours-long outage lasted until early in the afternoon. Since there were customers who worried about not being able to call 911, there was one police department that got hounded with callers checking if they could get through to the police. 

Due to the long duration of the outage, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) investigated the possibility of a cyberattack. Meanwhile, an insider told The Mobile Report that it was a technical error on AT&T’s end. 

Today, AT&T released an update on what caused the outage. In its statement, the wireless carrier junked the idea of a cyberattack. 

​​"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 cyberattack. We are continuing our assessment of today’s outage to ensure we keep delivering the service that our customers deserve."

Although investigations are ongoing, the good news is that AT&T’s systems have been restored and is back to normal.

Source: PhoneArena