Security Rift Exposes iPad User E-mail Addresses

A security gap exposed AT&T's iPad customers' e-mail addresses, reports the Wall Street Journal. The crack in security shines a light on how difficult it is for some corporations to protect their customers' information. Gawker reports that 114,000 iPad users were exposed.

The Wall Street Journal reports that a group of computer experts called Goatse Security claimed responsibility for exposing the e-mail addresses. The technique the group allegedly used finds numbers on AT&T's website to identify iPad users. Those numbers allowed the group to find user e-mail addresses.

AT&T released a statement following the breach:

"AT&T was informed by a business customer on Monday of the potential exposure of their iPad ICC IDS. The only information that can be derived from the ICC IDS is the e-mail address attached to that device.

This issue was escalated to the highest levels of the company and was corrected by Tuesday; and we have essentially turned off the feature that provided the e-mail addresses.

The person or group who discovered this gap did not contact AT&T.

We are continuing to investigate and will inform all customers whose e-mail addresses and ICC IDS may have been obtained.

We take customer privacy very seriously and while we have fixed this problem, we apologize to our customers who were impacted."

AT&T is the sole U.S. provider of wireless service for Apple's iPad and iPhone.

Read the full story at the Wall Street Journal.

[Former_Marine_Sgt]

As many have predicted for years - the more popular Apple products get - the more likely they -and thier supporting computer architectures- will be hacked and attacked.

I guess MS isn't the only with epic fails after all......

So much for the 'apple is always superior' crowd.

[zippiez]

Apple is great.
Apple is good.
Now we thank it for our food.

[vaughnmr]

The number of people exposed was far larger that noted here. The "walled garden" had it's walls shorten a tad bit...

[barbaram99]

Apple uses AT and T for their Ipads..I shall stick with my old Notebook..Thank ye..It runs Windows and is on our wireless network..So it maybe old but does more than than Apples..PCs rules...

[Chris_VA]

Wow, that was fast. "We take customer privacy very seriously..." once somebody else shows how we screwed up.