AT&T apologizes for massive system failure but rules out cyber attack

AT&T has said that a massive outage that left people unable to make calls – including to 911 – was not caused by a cyber attack.

The provider said thew outage was caused by “the application and execution of an incorrect process” during network expansion. “We are continuing our assessment of today’s outage to ensure we keep delivering the service that our customers deserve,” the statement read.

The White House echoed this saying that there was no evidence the outage was caused by a cyber attack

According to CNN, John Kirby, a National Security spokesman, said the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are looking into the Thursday incident and contacting partners to “see what we can do from a federal perspective to lend a hand to their investigative efforts to figure out what happened there.”

Still, he said, officials are unsure about what caused the widespread outage.

“The bottom line is we don’t have all the answers to that. I mean, this just happened earlier today. And so we’re working very hard to see if we can get to the ground truth of exactly what happened.”

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is now working with AT&T to get to the root of the issue.

“CISA is aware of the reports and we are working closely with AT&T to understand the cause of the outage and its impacts, and stand ready to offer any assistance needed,” the agency’s Executive Assistant Director for Cybersecurity, Eric Goldstein, said in a statement.

The outage, which began early on Thursday, led to warnings from emergency services and advice from companies to get around the issue.

AT&T has around 250 million customers, making it the US’s biggest phone network by some distance. The company said all its entire network had been restored around 3pm ET.

Follow for all the latest on the outage below.

Key Points

• AT&T says outage caused by ‘incorrect process’ not cyber attack

• AT&T says its entire network has been restored after an hours-long outage

• FCC says it’s actively investigating the outage

• Residents in the following cities reported the most outages

Marco Rubio uses outage to stoke fear about Chinese cyber attacks

Thursday 22 February 2024 16:25 , Michelle Del Rey

Florida senator Marco Rubio has used the outage to stoke fear about a Chinese cyber attack. At the moment there is nothing to indicate whether the outage was intentional.

(Experts have warned about the danger of an attack of this kind on important infrastructure. But it’s not clear whether China actually intends to launch one.)

Hello and welcome...

Thursday 22 February 2024 14:46 , Andrew Griffin

... to The Independent’s live coverage of the outage at AT&T.

AT&T says it has ‘located an outage'

Thursday 22 February 2024 14:50 , Andrew Griffin

In response to questions from customers, AT&T says it has “located” and “pinpointed an outage”.

“We don’t have an estimated time frame, but our team is on it,” it said on X/Twitter.

Outage continues

Thursday 22 February 2024 15:49 , Andrew Griffin

Hours after it started, some AT&T customers still can’t get online. The company hasn’t said anything meaningful since it said that it had “identified” the problem – but it still doesn’t seem to be fixed.

Virginia county urges residents to text 911 during outage

Thursday 22 February 2024 17:25 , Michelle Del Rey

Emergency officials are struggling to take in calls as the AT&T outage persists. In Virginia, officials with Prince William County, just an hour southwest from Washington DC, are asking their residents to text emergency services if they need to.

According to the Prince William Times, other officials in neighbouring counties are putting out the same notices, but are alerting residents to text 911 when possible.

Downdetector reports significant drop in complaints

Thursday 22 February 2024 18:53 , Michelle Del Rey

The website that tracks self-reported outages is reporting a significantly lower amount of disruptions across the country.

According to the latest numbers, just about 7,000 people continue to experience outages. Still, the site is not meant to offer a comprehensive look of the ongoing situation.

FCC says it’s actively investigating the outage

Thursday 22 February 2024 19:13 , Michelle Del Rey

“We are aware of the reported wireless outages, and our Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau is actively investigating,” an FCC spokesperson said.

“We are in touch with AT&T and public safety authorities, including FirstNet, as well as other providers.”

Professor says ‘cloud misconfiguration’ likely the case of AT&T outage

Thursday 22 February 2024 19:33 , Michelle Del Rey

Lee McKnight, an associate professor at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies, told NBC News that the most likely cause of the outage is “cloud misconfiguration” or human error.

“A possible but far less likely outcome is an intentional malicious hack of ATT’s network, but the diffuse pattern of outages across the country suggests something more fundamental,” he said.

Outages around the country as of 2pm

Thursday 22 February 2024 19:53 , Michelle Del Rey

AT&T: 4,000

T-Mobile: 574

Verizon: 920

Cricket: 651

Boost Mobile: 88

AT&T says 75 per cent of network restored

Thursday 22 February 2024 20:43 , Michelle Del Rey

AT&T is saying that 75 per cent of its network has been restored.

“Our network teams took immediate action and so far three-quarters of our network has been restored,” the company said. “We are working as quickly as possible to restore service to remaining customers.”

iPhones offer communication through satellites

Thursday 22 February 2024 21:20 , Michelle Del Rey

Recent iPhones (the 14 and 15) include a new satellite connectivity feature that lets them connect to the world through satellites rather than traditional phone connections. It’s explained here.

You should be able to use that even if you are part of the AT&T outage. But note that it’s mostly intended for emergency situations – and that it comes with its own restrictions, such as requiring sight of the sky.

Emergency services advised people to use other phones

Thursday 22 February 2024 23:45 , Michelle Del Rey

This was a fairly representative message from emergency services across the US. They said they were aware of the problem and advised people to try to use different phones – and not to call 911 just to check whether it works.

Customers ask for credit in response to outage

00:45 , Michelle Del Rey

Many of AT&T’s customers are calling on the company to offer some credit in return for the outage. (The network has apologised, but not yet said anything about whether there will be any kind of compensation.)

AT&T says outage caused by ‘incorrect process’ not cyber attack

01:30 , Mike Bedigan

In a statement updating customers later on Thursday, AT&T ruled out that the outage was caused by a cyber attack.

“Based on our initial review, we believe that today’s outage was caused by the application and execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network, not a cyber attack,” the provider said.

“We are continuing our assessment of today’s outage to ensure we keep delivering the service that our customers deserve.”

How to use Wi-Fi calling

01:45 , Michelle Del Rey

AT&T has advised affected customers to use WiFi calling. As the name suggests, that relies on WiFi and the internet to make calls, rather than the phone network. As such, it gets around the problems with the phone network (but does of course rely on you having access to a WiFi connection).

It’s turned on by opening up the Settings app on your iPhone or Android. Press “Cellular” on an iPhone or “Connection” on an Android, and then choose the WiFi calling option, which will allow you to turn it on and choose important settings.

You can find more information on AT&T’s website here.

TikToker shows airport chaos caused by AT&T outage

02:15 , Mike Bedigan

Amid the phone service outage, one person named Leo took to TikTok to show what effect the outage had on people who were at the airport.

Brittany Miller has the full story here:

TikToker shows airport chaos caused by AT&T outage

Other networks appeared to be hit by AT&T outage

02:45 , Michelle Del Rey

On tracking website Down Detector, as well as in complaints on Twitter, customers at rival networks such as Verizon and T-Mobile also complained about an outage.

But it appears that is just an effect of the AT&T outage, and is happening because people on that network are unable to call others. Both Verizon and T-Mobile have denied that they are having issues.

AT&T says massive national outage caused by ‘incorrect process’ not cyber attack

03:15 , Mike Bedigan

AT&T has apologised for the widespread outages that affected tens of thousands of consumers, but said that the network failure was not due to a cyber attack.

Read the full story here:

AT&T apologizes for hours-long system outage: Live updates

Was outage caused by a solar flare?

03:45 , Michelle Del Rey

Probably not, says Ryan French, an astrophysicist.

Ron DeSantis addressed AT&T outage during news conference

04:45 , Michelle Del Rey

“Some of you may not have cell phone service this morning,” Mr DeSantis said while speaking to a crowd about the work of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District on Thursday.

“You think about your daily life like...honestly it’s like imagine if we had an EMP attack or something like what would end up happening in this country,” he said. “It’s not necessarily a good thought.”

Customers compare situation to Leave The World Behind

05:45 , Michelle Del Rey

It’s only a few months since the release of Leave The World Behind, Netflix’s film with a tag line that does feel a little familiar today:

Of course, there is internet, and most phones are still working. But it is a reminder that such an outage is possible.

AT&T referred customers to ‘network update’ page

06:45 , Michelle Del Rey

AT&T pointed affected customers to a special page on its website during the outage. It’s not very detailed:

“Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning. Our network teams took immediate action and so far three-quarters of our network has been restored. We are working as quickly as possible to restore service to remaining customers.”

You can find the page here.

Residents in the following cities reported the most outages

07:45 , Michelle Del Rey

Residents in four Texas cities and other cities in the Midwest and on the east coast reported the most amount of service disruptions, according to Downdetector, a website that tracks that information.

Impacted people lived in Houston, San Antonio, Dallas and Austin. Meanwhile, other residents who struggled to get cell service were mainly in Atlanta, Chicago, New York City, Miami and Indianapolis.

WiFi calling isn’t the only way to avoid the phone network

08:45 , Michelle Del Rey

On Thursday, AT&T recommended that affected users get onto WiFi and use that to call people. (Instructions are below.)

But there are plenty of other ways of communicating without a phone connection, too.

You can download maps offline, for instance (Google has long allowed this, and Apple Maps has recently introduced it, too). And you can download music and videos onto your phone ready for any long journeys.

White House says no evidence AT&T outage is cyber attack

09:45 , Michelle Del Rey

According to CNN, John Kirby, a National Security spokesman, said the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are looking into the Thursday incident and contacting partners to “see what we can do from a federal perspective to lend a hand to their investigative efforts to figure out what happened there.”

Still, he said, officials are unsure about what caused the widespread outage.

“The bottom line is we don’t have all the answers to that. I mean, this just happened earlier today. And so we’re working very hard to see if we can get to the ground truth of exactly what happened.”

National Association of Broadcasters advocates on the importance of AM radio amid outages

10:45 , Michelle Del Rey

“Today’s cell service outage is another example of the critical need to keep AM radio in cars,” the association said in a statement posted to X, formerly Twitter. “When the internet is out, power lines are down and cellphones can’t find a signal, AM radio is there, providing reliable life-saving alerts & updates.”

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency working with AT&T

11:45 , Michelle Del Rey

“CISA is aware of the reports and we are working closely with AT&T to understand the cause of the outage and its impacts, and stand ready to offer any assistance needed,” The agency’s Executive Assistant Director for Cybersecurity, Eric Goldstein, said in a statement.

AT&T apologises to customers

12:45 , Michelle Del Rey

AT&T has sent an array of different messages to affected customers today. But they are mostly along the lines of the below:

“We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience that is happening and some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning. We are working urgently to restore service to them. We encourage the use of Wi-Fi calling until service is restored.”

AT&T says its entire network has been restored after an hours-long outage

13:45 , Michelle Del Rey

“We have restored wireless service to all our affected customers,” the company said in an emailed statement.

“We sincerely apologize to them.  Keeping our customers connected remains our top priority, and we are taking steps to ensure our customers do not experience this again in the future.”

70,000 people went without service during outage peak

14:45 , Michelle Del Rey

About 70,000 customers went without service at the peak of the outage, according to Downdetector, a site that tracks the data.

AT&T said it had restored all of its network around 3pm.

‘Landlines are languishing'

16:16 , Andrew Griffin

Is this week’s AT&T outage a reminder of the importance of landlines? Fewer and fewer people have them – but those that do probably felt happy about it when the cellular service went down.

That’s the argument of this piece, about how the US fell out of love with the cord.