AT&T - Your World, Ruined

InfoWorld reported a great story on Friday concerning the recent data theft at AT&T. Here are the facts:

-AT&T website hacked
-Perpetrators get personal data on 19k customers
-AT&T shuts down site and contacts authorities
-Perpetrators use information for phishing scam and contact most of the 19k via email
-AT&T decides to notify customers several days later via email about the theft

Ted Sampson of InfoWorld makes a good point here about email: "Real nice, guys. Sending such an important message to your customers via e-mail, which could easily be confused as spam or, hey, a phishing attempt, is simply irresponsible. Rather, I think the company should have been forthcoming and let the media do its job in helping alert customers to what was happening to their data. Yes, it would have taken some lumps in the process, but now, I'd say it's in for a few more."

My take: Is there irony here -- shouldn't a phone company have called its customers??? And perhaps Ted's a little too high on his horse. You couldn't pay me enough money to rely on the media to keep me informed with objective useful information. Sure, this article was great, after the fact. If AT&T officials had reported this to the press looking for a helping hand, what headline do you think would have snagged more readers (remember it's not about doing the right thing, it's about readership):

"AT&T Neglects Web Security - Loses 19k Personal Customer Records"

or

"Alert AT&T Customers - Your personal data may have been stolen"

-posted by Justin