AT&T Announces Likely Cause of Widespread US Service Outages
Summary from the AllSides News Team
A cyberattack is not thought to have triggered widespread outages for AT&T customers in the U.S. on Thursday, the company announced.
Key Quotes: "Based on our initial review, we believe the outage was caused by the application & execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network, not a cyberattack," AT&T announced on X Friday.
For Context: The outage sparked federal agencies to investigate a possible cyberattack amid broader concerns about hacking threats from Russia and China.
How the Media Covered It: Sources across the spectrum covered the update, but not as prominently as they covered the initial outage.
Featured Coverage of this Story
From the Right
AT&T reveals likely cause of outage that affected customers nationwide
AT&T said the network disruption that caused tens of thousands of customers to lose cellular service Thursday was not the result of a cyberattack.
After service was fully restored at around 6 p.m. ET, the mobile phone service provider revealed the results of its initial investigation into the outage.
"Based on our initial review, we believe the outage was caused by the application & execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network, not a cyberattack," AT&T posted on X.
From the Left
AT&T outage was "not a cyber attack"
AT&T says Thursday's outage which left thousands of customers without service and unable to call 911, was "not a cyber attack," the company believes.
Why it matters: Despite threats from nation-state hackers in China and Russia, it's still statistically more likely that a network outage would be caused by misconfigurations or faulty settings.
The FCC, DHS and the FBI were reportedly all investigating the incident on Thursday, which may have led people to assume it was a cyberattack.
White House spokesperson John Kirby said there was "no reason" to think the incident was due to a...
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It was the first time I'd been completely without a mobile connection since college. If I had an accident or got lost, I was on...
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