A group of Iranian hackers claimed responsibility for a widespread AT&T outage that left hundreds of Texans without service Monday, but AT&T says it has no evidence to support that claim.
APT IRAN, associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-affiliated CyberAv3nger, wrote on Telegram Tuesday that it attacked telecommunications and an unknown water utility in Texas, as first reported by Threat Beat, a news source associated with the McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security at Auburn University.
In late August, APT IRAN threatened "unexpected and critical events" targeting the telecommunications, energy and water industries, according to Threat Beat. It recently claimed responsibility for a series of attacks on U.S. water systems and threatened to continue targeting critical infrastructure before Sept. 11.
However, an AT&T spokesperson said the company's information does not support the claim that the recent disruption was related to a cyberattack.
"We have no evidence to support that claim," an AT&T spokesperson told Chron on Wednesday. "Our assessment indicates that attempted cable theft led to the outage."
RELATED: Massive AT&T outage in Houston leaves customers scrambling
Outage reports began rolling in around 2:18 a.m. Monday morning, according to DownDetector. Then, a surge of reports occurred again in the afternoon. The tracker logged thousands of reports, with large clusters from the Houston area, Spring, Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin.
Around 4 p.m. on Monday, AT&T posted to X that it was under a"red alert," acknowledging a widespread issue impacting more than 7,000 families.
"We hear you, and we are currently addressing a major Fiber outage affecting the Dallas area," the company wrote. "We know how essential a dependable Internet connection is to your household, and we truly apologize for the lack of immediate updates."
The issue has since been resolved, and AT&T said it is continuing to monitor its network.
"Internet service across Dallas and surrounding areas is operating normally, and we continue to monitor our network and review relevant information," an AT&T spokesperson said on Wednesday.
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This article originally published at Iranian hackers claim credit for massive Texas AT&T outage. AT&T says no way.