AT&T US mobile carrier suffers service outages, prompting concerns about possible cyberattack

On 22 February, AT&T suffered a massive network outage that resulted in the loss of mobile services – including text, calls and internet – for its American customers as well as disrupt the communications of the Department of Commerce. More critically, people were unable to call emergency services which resulted in authorities issuing warnings about the same. The FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Communications Commission have all launched inquiries into the situation, with the White House National Security spokesperson, John Kirby, stating that currently, there were no reasons to suggest that the outages were due to a cybersecurity incident.

The outage largely occurred in Houston, Atlanta and Chicago, with over 1600 outage reports. Customers of mobile carriers such as Verizon and T-Mobile also reported outages. However, both companies’ spokespersons maintained that their network was operating normally and the disruption was only when their customers contacted another carrier. AT&T restored services late on Thursday afternoon and the company has asserted that the outage was not due to a cyberattack, but rather misconfigurations and faulty settings that are regular features of mobile carrier operations. Doug Madory, Director of Internet Analysis at Kentik, lent credence to the company’s statement, explaining that, in case of a cyberattack, all devices would have been down, which was not the case here.

The incident highlights the public tendency to visualise the worst-case scenarios in such situations, likely fuelled by media that depict hackers as technologically savvy individuals intent on starting a global cyberwar. The Daily Mail further exacerbated the situation by running headlines that hinted at the possibility of a distributed denial of service attack or cyber intrusion.