AT&T $177 Million Data Breach Settlement: Payouts, Deadlines, and Delays

The AT&T $177 million data breach settlement resolves class action claims from two separate 2024 breaches that together exposed personal information for tens of millions of current and former AT&T customers. It pays up to $5,000 for documented losses tied to the March 2024 dark web leak and up to $2,500 for losses tied to the July 2024 Snowflake breach, with tiered cash payments available for those without documentation.¹ The claim window closed on December 18, 2025, and as of mid-2026, no payments have gone out because the court has not yet granted final approval.

Which Breaches the Settlement Covers

The settlement combines two incidents AT&T disclosed months apart in 2024. The company has said the two are unrelated.²

The first, disclosed on March 30, 2024, involved a data set containing information on roughly 73 million people that surfaced on the dark web: about 7.6 million current account holders and 65.4 million former customers.³ The exposed records dated to 2019 or earlier and included names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and encrypted account passcodes.⁴

The second, disclosed on July 12, 2024, involved AT&T’s workspace on the third-party cloud platform Snowflake. Hackers accessed it between April 14 and April 25, 2024, and stole call and text metadata for approximately 109 to 110 million wireless customers, covering a window from May 1 through October 31, 2022, with a small number of records extending to January 2, 2023. The stolen data included phone numbers contacted, call durations, and cell tower identifiers that could be used to approximate location. No names, Social Security numbers, or financial information were involved.⁵

The settlement fund is split accordingly: $149 million for a first class tied to the dark web breach and $28 million for a second class tied to the Snowflake breach.⁶ AT&T denied liability throughout the case and said it agreed to settle to avoid the cost and uncertainty of continued litigation.²

How Much You Can Get

Payments depend on which breach affected you, what you can document, and whether your Social Security number was exposed.

If you’re in the first class, meaning your information was part of the dark web leak, you can claim up to $5,000 in documented losses traceable to the breach. Without documentation, you could instead elect a tiered cash payment from the net settlement fund. Class members whose Social Security numbers were exposed receive a Tier 1 payment worth five times the Tier 2 amount paid to those whose other information was compromised but whose Social Security numbers were not.¹

If you’re in the second class, meaning your call and text metadata was taken in the Snowflake breach, you can claim up to $2,500 in documented losses incurred on or after April 14, 2024. Account owners could alternatively elect a Tier 3 pro rata cash payment.¹

If both breaches affected you, the combined maximum is $7,500, but you have to file separate documentation for each claim.⁷

Actual payments will be adjusted on a pro rata basis depending on the volume of claims and deductions from the fund. Plaintiffs’ attorneys have asked for $59 million in fees, one-third of the total, plus litigation costs.⁸ Administrative expenses, court-approved service awards for named plaintiffs, and taxes also come out of the fund before payments are calculated.¹

Deadlines and Where Things Stand

U.S. District Judge Ada E. Brown, who oversees the consolidated multidistrict litigation in the Northern District of Texas, granted preliminary approval on June 20, 2025, calling the deal “fair and reasonable.”⁹ Notices went out by email and postcard starting in August 2025.¹⁰

The key dates for class members have already passed:

If you missed the claim deadline, you cannot recover money from this settlement.

Why No Money Has Been Paid Yet

Two things are holding up distribution. First, Judge Brown has not issued a ruling on final approval as of June 2026. Second, before preliminary approval was entered, three individuals — Osa Massen, Audrey Jones, and Susan Savala — moved to intervene in opposition to the settlement. The court denied the motion without prejudice on June 20, 2025, and the three filed a notice of interlocutory appeal on July 21, 2025.¹¹¹²

Kroll Settlement Administration continues to process claims. No payments will go out until the court approves the settlement and any appeal window closes.¹

What This Settlement Does Not Cover

This class action is separate from regulatory action by the Federal Communications Commission. In September 2024, the FCC reached a $13 million consent decree with AT&T over a different breach involving billing information for about 9 million customers, held by an outside vendor and dating from 2015 to 2017. That agreement required stricter vendor oversight, new data retention and disposal rules, and three years of annual compliance audits. The FCC has said it is also investigating the Snowflake-linked breach.¹³ Money from FCC enforcement doesn’t go to customers and is not part of the $177 million fund.

1
Telecom Data Settlement. In Re: AT&T Inc. Customer Data Security Breach Litigation – Settlement
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CNN. AT&T Data Leak Settlement
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ABC News. AT&T Data Leak Dark Web
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AT&T. Addressing Data Set Released on Dark Web
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Security.org. AT&T Data Breach
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6ABC. AT&T Data Breach $177 Million Settlement
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Time. AT&T Data Breach Settlement: How to File a Claim
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Greenwich Time. AT&T Data Breach Settlement Attorney Fees
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Texas Lawbook. AT&T to Pay $177M to Settle Customer Data Breach Class Action
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CPM Legal. CPM Announces Settlement of AT&T Data Breach
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U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Preliminary Approval Order, MDL 3114
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CourtListener. In Re AT&T Inc. Customer Data Security Breach Litigation Docket
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Broadband Breakfast. FCC Fines AT&T $13 Million for Data Breach