The Department of Justice charged a Pakistani man with bribing AT&T employees to install malware on the company’s network and unlock customer devices (via ZDNet).
Bribery
Muhammad Fahd and his co-conspirator Ghulam Jiwani were charged with paying over US$1 million in bribes, with one employee making US$428,500. They recruited AT&T employees via telephone or Facebook messages. They sent IMEI codes to employees who cooperated so the devices could be unlocked, the number of which is believed to be over 2 million. Most of the unlocked phones were iPhones.
Additionally, between April to October 2013, malware the employees installed on the network collected data on how AT&T’s infrastructure worked. It was a keylogger with the ability “gather confidential and proprietary information regarding the structure and functioning of AT&T’s internal protected computers and applications.”
An AT&T spokesperson told ZDNet:
We have been working closely with law enforcement since this scheme was uncovered to bring these criminals to justice and are pleased with these developments.
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