Hole in AT&T's security leaves 114,000 iPad users vulnerable

A breach in AT&T's security has allowed hackers to obtain the e-mail addresses of 114,000 users including government officials, military leaders and business executives.

The breach, first reported by Gawker, was discovered by a group of hackers known as Goatse Security that specializes in exposing network security vulnerabilities. The group was able to obtain user e-mail addresses and the identification numbers iPads use when logging into AT&T's network, known as an ICC ID.

AT&T acknowledged the incident in a statement but downplayed the impact.

"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 company apologized and is working to notify all affected users, but noted that "the person or group who discovered this gap did not contact AT&T."

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

Gawker reported that affected customers included a number of military and government officials as well as the executives of media companies including the New York Times Company, Dow Jones, Viacom, News Corporation, Time Warner and Hearst.