The AT&T data breach settlement is a $177 million class-action deal resolving claims from two breaches disclosed in 2024: a March 2024 leak of personal information onto the dark web and a July 2024 theft of call and text metadata from an AT&T workspace hosted on Snowflake. The settlement was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas and received preliminary approval on June 20, 2025.1Reuters. $177 Million AT&T Data Breach Settlement Wins U.S. Court Approval The claim and opt-out deadlines have passed, the final approval hearing was held on January 15, 2026, and as of the settlement administrator’s last public update on April 23, 2026, the court had not yet issued a final decision. No payments have been distributed.2Telecom Data Settlement. Telecom Data Settlement Official Website
What the Settlement Covers
Two separate incidents are folded into one deal, and the eligibility rules differ for each.
The first is the March 2024 dark-web release. AT&T confirmed on March 30, 2024 that a data set containing customer information dating from 2019 or earlier had surfaced on the dark web. It affected roughly 7.6 million current account holders and 65.4 million former ones. Exposed fields included names, mailing and email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, AT&T account numbers, and account passcodes.3ABC News. AT&T Data Leak Dark Web
The second is the Snowflake breach, disclosed July 12, 2024. Hackers used stolen credentials to download call and text metadata from an AT&T workspace over 11 days in April 2024. The stolen records covered interactions from May 1 through October 31, 2022, plus a small subset from January 2, 2023, and affected approximately 110 million people, including nearly all AT&T wireless customers and customers of resellers that use AT&T’s network.4Krebs on Security. Hackers Steal Phone, SMS Records for Nearly All AT&T Customers The metadata included the phone numbers a customer interacted with, counts of those interactions, and aggregate call durations. For some records, cell-site identification numbers were also taken, which can approximate a device’s location. The content of calls and texts, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and names were not part of this breach.5Cybersecurity Dive. AT&T Cyberattack Snowflake Environment
AT&T denied all liability and said it agreed to settle to avoid the expense and uncertainty of continued litigation.1Reuters. $177 Million AT&T Data Breach Settlement Wins U.S. Court Approval
How Much Money Is Available and How It Is Divided
The $177 million is split into two non-reversionary, all-cash funds, one for each breach.6Settlement Agreement. AT&T Settlement Agreement
The AT&T 1 Fund holds $149 million and covers the March 2024 dark-web breach. A class member can claim up to $5,000 in documented losses fairly traceable to that incident and occurring in 2019 or later. Members also receive a pro rata “tier” payment from what remains: Tier 1 members, whose Social Security numbers were exposed, receive five times the amount paid to Tier 2 members, whose data was exposed but whose Social Security number was not.
The AT&T 2 Fund holds $28 million and covers the Snowflake metadata breach. A class member can claim up to $2,500 in documented losses occurring on or after April 14, 2024. Account owners could instead elect a Tier 3 pro rata payment from the remaining fund.
People affected by both breaches, called overlap settlement class members, could file against both funds for a combined maximum of $7,500.7Time. AT&T Data Breach Settlement: How To File a Claim Actual individual payouts will depend on how many valid claims are filed, on attorney fees, and on administrative costs, and are not yet known. Plaintiffs’ counsel requested $59 million in fees, one-third of the combined funds, plus about $796,000 in litigation costs; the court has not ruled on that request.8Greenwich Time. AT&T Data Breach Settlement Attorney Fees
Who Qualified
The AT&T 1 class includes all living U.S. residents whose personal data fields appeared in the March 2024 dark-web release. The AT&T 2 class is broader and covers AT&T account owners, authorized line users, and end users whose call or text metadata was part of the Snowflake theft. Account owners were permitted to submit claims on behalf of their end users or line users.6Settlement Agreement. AT&T Settlement Agreement
Can You Still File a Claim
No. The deadline to submit a claim was December 18, 2025, and the deadline to opt out or object was November 17, 2025. Claim forms are no longer available on the settlement website.2Telecom Data Settlement. Telecom Data Settlement Official Website If you did not file a claim by that date, you cannot recover from these funds, but you also remain bound by the release of claims once the settlement is finally approved, unless you timely opted out.
When Payments Will Go Out
Judge Ada E. Brown granted preliminary approval on June 20, 2025, finding the settlement “fair, reasonable, and adequate,” certified the settlement classes, and appointed Kroll Settlement Administration to run the notice and claims process.9U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas. Preliminary Approval Order The final approval hearing was held on January 15, 2026. As of the settlement administrator’s last update on April 23, 2026, no final approval order had been entered. Kroll is reviewing and processing filed claims in the meantime, but no money will be paid out until the court grants final approval and any appeal period has expired.2Telecom Data Settlement. Telecom Data Settlement Official Website
FCC Penalties Are a Separate Matter
Regulatory action against AT&T over data security is not part of this class settlement and does not produce consumer payments. In September 2024, the FCC entered a $13 million consent decree with AT&T over a January 2023 vendor cloud breach, requiring AT&T to implement a data inventory program, strengthen vendor data-disposal practices, and conduct annual compliance audits.10FCC. FCC Settles AT&T Vendor Cloud Breach That money went to the U.S. Treasury, not to affected customers.