AT&T Inc. agreed to pay $13 million to settle an investigation by the US Federal Communications Commission into whether the telecommunications company failed to protect customer data that was stolen when a cloud vendor was hacked last year.

AT&T has agreed to pay $13m to the US telco regulator to settle a long-running investigation into whether it failed to protect customer data stored in the cloud.

AT&T failed to ensure that a third-party vendor adequately protected the telecom carrier's customers, regulators say.

This week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has reached a settlement with telco giant AT&T, fining them $13 million for their lack of oversight over customers’ data security. Back in January 2023, bad actors gained access to the data of 8.9 million AT&T customers via a cyberattack on an unnamed third-party cloud vendor.

AT&T has agreed to pay $13 million to resolve an investigation over a data breach of a cloud vendor in January 2023 that impacted 8.9 million AT&T wireless customers, the Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday.