AT&T has filed a lawsuit against 3 former call center employees, accusing them of installing malware on their servers with the objective of aiding a phone unlocking service obtain AT&T unlock codes. Once you’ve paid off your wireless contract, the FCC now requires carriers to give customers an unlock code that will allow them to take their device to another wireless provider – if they so choose.
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At the time, AT&T noticed that the requests were associated with the three former employees’ credentials, and given that the “unlock requests occurred within milliseconds of one another”, the company suspected the use of automated script. As it turned out, the employees had installed malware on the company’s systems, exploiting the customer service app “Torch”, according to the filing. But, AT&T concedes that it doesn’t know the full extent of Swift Unlocks’ involvement. This virus supposedly let Swift Unlocks access their computers remotely in order to gather codes which could unlock an AT&T device. Otherwise, the phone simply won’t work on another network. Legally, only the carrier is allowed to unlock a phone using its network, however a number of grey-area sites like Swift Unlocks do offer discounted workarounds.
The suit alleges that the scheme allowed Swift Unlocks to secretly obtain access to “hundreds of thousands” of unlock codes until AT&T discovered the malware around October 2013. Lam was subsequently fired from the company, while Sapatin and Evans left on their own accords.
AT&T, whose strict unlocking policies have drawn the ire of consumers, filed its complaint last week in US District Court in Seattle, Washington.
As mentioned, Swift Unlock was supposedly looking for specific codes that only could be accessed by AT&T employees. We have sent a message to Swift Unlocks about the case but haven’t heard back yet. AT&T says its investigators uncovered numerous iterations of the software, which grew in complexity until it was eventually able to submit the automatic requests. All three are no longer working at AT&T.
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Sapatin allegedly tried to recruit other AT&T employees, telling one “that she would make $2,000 every two weeks through her participation in the Unlock Scheme”, AT&T wrote. They’ve also provided unlocks for T-Mobile and Verizon, though it’s unclear if those two companies are involved. The company also says it can handle phones that are marked as lost, stolen or blacklisted, but they will only work outside the U.S. “It’s important to note that this did not involve any improper access of customer information, or any adverse effect on our customers”.
