AT&T agreed to pay $177 million to settle a class action data breach lawsuit covering the two cybersecurity incidents it disclosed in 2024. A federal judge in Texas granted preliminary approval in June 2025 and held the final approval hearing on January 15, 2026. As of mid-2026, the court has not issued a final ruling, and no payments have been distributed.1Telecom Data Settlement. AT&T Data Incident Settlement
Who the Settlement Covers
The deal resolves claims from two separate breaches AT&T disclosed months apart.
The first, announced March 30, 2024, involved a data set released on the dark web containing names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, account passcodes, and billing account numbers. AT&T said it affected roughly 7.6 million current account holders and 65.4 million former account holders.2AT&T. Addressing Data Set Released on Dark Web
The second, announced July 12, 2024, involved call and text metadata stolen from AT&T’s workspace on the Snowflake cloud platform. It covered “nearly all” cellular customers for a stretch from May through October 2022, plus a smaller subset from January 2, 2023. The stolen records included the phone numbers customers interacted with, interaction counts, aggregate call durations, and in some cases cell site identifiers. It did not include Social Security numbers, dates of birth, or the content of messages.1Telecom Data Settlement. AT&T Data Incident Settlement
The $177 million is split into two non-reversionary funds, meaning unused money does not return to AT&T. The AT&T 1 Settlement Fund holds $149 million for the March 2024 dark web breach. The AT&T 2 Settlement Fund holds $28 million for the Snowflake breach. Each fund pays its own claims, administrative costs, attorneys’ fees, and service awards.3CCH. AT&T Data Breach Settlement Agreement
How Much You Can Claim
Class members from the March 2024 breach could claim up to $5,000 for documented losses occurring in 2019 or later and traceable to the breach. Those who didn’t submit documented losses were eligible for a tiered pro rata cash payment from what remained in the fund. Tier 1, for people whose Social Security numbers were exposed, pays five times what Tier 2 pays, which covers people whose other data was exposed but whose Social Security numbers were not.1Telecom Data Settlement. AT&T Data Incident Settlement
Class members from the Snowflake breach could claim up to $2,500 for documented losses on or after April 14, 2024. Account owners could instead take a Tier 3 pro rata cash payment.1Telecom Data Settlement. AT&T Data Incident Settlement
People hit by both breaches, described in the settlement as “overlap settlement class members,” could file against both funds for a combined maximum of $7,500.4CBS News. AT&T Data Breach Settlement: How to File Claim
Exact per-person amounts are not yet known. Pro rata payments depend on how many valid claims come in, how much is claimed in documented losses, and what is deducted for administrative costs and legal fees.5Clarion Ledger. How Much Money Can You Get From AT&T Settlement
Why No One Has Been Paid Yet
Judge Ada Brown of the Northern District of Texas granted preliminary approval on June 20, 2025, calling the deal “fair and reasonable,” and appointed Kroll Settlement Administration LLC to run the claims process.6Reuters. $177 Million AT&T Data Breach Settlement Wins U.S. Court Approval7CCH. Preliminary Approval Order Preliminary approval is not the end of the case. Nothing gets paid until final approval, and even then payments wait until the window for appeals has closed.1Telecom Data Settlement. AT&T Data Incident Settlement
An appeal is already in the picture. Three individuals, Osa Massen, Audrey Jones, and Susan Savala, filed a motion to intervene opposing the settlement. Judge Brown denied it without prejudice, and the three filed a notice of interlocutory appeal to the Fifth Circuit in July 2025.7CCH. Preliminary Approval Order8CourtListener. In Re AT&T Inc. Customer Data Security Breach Litigation Docket
The final approval hearing took place on January 15, 2026. As of June 2026, Judge Brown has not ruled. The settlement administrator continues to review and process claims in the meantime, but distribution can’t begin without a final order. No timeline for a decision has been announced.1Telecom Data Settlement. AT&T Data Incident Settlement
Deadlines That Have Already Passed
The claim filing period is closed. The opt-out and objection deadline was October 17, 2025. The claim deadline, originally November 18, 2025, was extended by court order on October 3, 2025, to December 18, 2025. That same order pushed the final approval hearing from December 3, 2025, to January 15, 2026.9U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas. MDL 3:24-md-03114 If you didn’t file a claim by December 18, 2025, you cannot submit one now.
Don’t Confuse This With the FTC Throttling Refunds
A separate AT&T payout has been circulating in search results and news coverage, and it isn’t part of this settlement. In 2019, the Federal Trade Commission reached a $60 million settlement with AT&T over allegations the company throttled the speeds of customers on “unlimited” data plans. AT&T paid $52 million in refunds and bill credits in 2020, and in April 2024 the FTC distributed another $6.3 million to roughly 268,000 former AT&T wireless customers who had filed valid claims but had not yet been paid.10Federal Trade Commission. AT&T Data Throttling Refunds11Federal Trade Commission. FTC Sends Refunds to Former AT&T Wireless Customers That program has nothing to do with the 2024 data breaches or the $177 million settlement.