Security breach exposes data of 114,000 iPad users

LAKE MARY, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - A security breach has resulted in 114,000 Apple iPad users -- including high-ranking government employees, CEOs and media personalities -- having their data exposed, Gawker Media’s Valleywag blog reported Wednesday.

A group called Goatse Security managed to exploit weaknesses in the AT&T network to obtain data from thousands of iPad users including New York Times Co. CEO Janet Robinson, ABC’s Diane Sawyer, film mogul Harvey Weinstein, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and others, according to Valleywag.

AT&T is the exclusive network provider for Apple iPhones and iPads in the U.S.

The blog reported that Goatse notified AT&T of the vulnerability and it has now been cleared up, but not before data, including email addresses, were made available.

“At the very least, AT&T exposed a very large and valuable cache of email addresses, VIP and otherwise. This is going to hurt the telecommunications company's already poor image with iPhone and iPad customers, and complicate its very profitable relationship with Apple,” Valleywag reported.

Requests for comment from Apple were not immediately returned, the blog wrote. 

AT&T released the following statement:

"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."