AT&T Customer Phone Hacking Tied To Terrorists

theodp writes "Have you ever hacked into AT&T customer accounts and diverted money to terrorism-financing groups? You will. In 2003, the NY Times reported that AT&T contended U.S. victims of a Philippines-based telephone hacking swindle were responsible for long-distance calls fraudulently made through their voice mail systems. At the time, the city of East Palo Alto was slapped with a $30,000 long-distance phone bill that resulted from voice-mail hacking. Fast forward to 2011, and the NY Times is reporting that a Philippines-based group hacked into the accounts of AT&T business customers in the U.S. and diverted money to an organization that financed terrorist attacks across Asia. But it's not quite deja-vu-all-over-again. While it'd make a better story if AT&T contended customers were responsible for the charges and any ensuing terrorism, AT&T reimbursed the victims of the hacking this time around."

Comments

Who needs voicemail?

[ackthpt]

Months ago I received a text message, which billed me for $10. T-Mobile just let it through like it was completely legit. I had to spend over an hour with customer service before I got them to block all billing to my mobile phone account.

Talk about a security hole you could drive a truck through. How many other vermin are doing this and getting away with it?

Re:Who needs voicemail?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"I had to spend over an hour with customer service before I got them to block all billing to my mobile phone account."

Could you tell us how you did it? No matter what I try, I keep getting a bill every month :-(

Re:Who needs voicemail?

[Anonymous Coward]

Talk about a security hole you could drive a truck through.

That's not a security hole - that's a feature. and of course T-Mobile has a history of this shit

See, the telecom industry is legally allowed and prefers to be able to charge for third party services because they get a HUGE commission. That's the reason why T-Mobile gave you a hard time because they were also making money on the fraudulent charges. And the way it works is that the crooks don't even need permission to it. They can slam the charges on your bill. And to add insult to injury, our phone bills are so goddamn complicated and with purposefully vague terms like "National service fees" or charges that are made to look like some sort of Federally mandated charge, it's very difficult to catch the bogus charges and therefore, most people pay for the crooks.

What we need is a regulation that makes third party billing on any telecom account illegal. The telecoms cannot be trusted to do the right thing. Self regulation my ass!

Re:Who needs voicemail?

[mehrotra.akash]

But seriously, whats up with US paying to receive calls in the home circle, and messages overall?

Re:Of all places, EPA?

[Anonymous Coward]

People with money generally know how to keep it, or they wouldn't have it. Scammers target the inept who don't know how to defend themselves (and who society will quickly believe brought it onto themselves). Rich people call the police. Poor people don't, because they (correctly) expect calling the police to get them into more trouble.

Or, they could just have fun with you..

[dohnut]

I worked at a small (~120 employees) engineering company in the Midwest. Our building was in a new industrial park on the outskirts of a small metropolitan area. I can't remember the exact date this happened but it would have been near 2000.

Apparently someone from California (well, that is where the call came from) was hacking PBXs and he got into ours (which had no security in place -- no, I wasn't IT). Instead of milking it for free calls he (I'm assuming a male) decided to call in a prank office shooting. He called 911 from our system and told the dispatcher that someone or some group were in the building shooting people. He even played clips of screaming and gunshots in the background.

Needless to say, the entire police force showed up to our industrial park. One officer was in such a hurry that his "brakes went out" when he tried to corner and instead ended up in the glass-enclosed display area of a nearby home remodeling outfit.

The police observed the building for a while (we had a large, open 2 story glassed-in reception area) and noticed that everything seemed normal. The sent an officer up in full swat gear to the door and the receptionist was quite surprised to see him. Eventually, they figured out that there were no shooters and that someone outside of the building had made the call.

Of course, I was told all of this after the fact as I was in my cubicle with headphones on and didn't know any of this had happened.

Not sure if they ever caught the people responsible but it is a good story.