Solar flare or cyber attack? AT&T network outage prompts White House investigation, impacting stock. Uncertain causes spark speculation and concern.
Many AT&T customers woke up without cell service on Monday morning in many places across the USA that later impacted badly on AT&T Stock after AT&T network outage.
A big outage lasting for hours hurt the reputation and stock price of AT&T (NYSE: T) on Thursday. Although the damage wasn’t too severe, investors sold their AT&T shares, causing the stock to close more than 2% lower for the day. This performance was worse compared to the S&P 500 index, which went up by around the same percentage.
AT&T is a popular network service provider in the USA. The AT&T wireless outage started around 3:30 AM ET on Thursday. The outage affected many cities in the USA, such as Los Angeles, New York, and Atlanta. According to reports, approximately 70,000 reports were logged on downdetector.com. Similar issues were reported by customers of other network providers, but the number of issues for other network users was lower compared to AT&T customers.
Is there any connection between solar flare and AT&T network outage?
Two strong solar flares from the sun happened in the last two days, coinciding with widespread cell phone outages across the United States. This raised questions about whether the two events were related. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) stated that the solar flares originated from a specific region of the sun that “continues to exhibit strong magnetic complexity.”
This might explain the telephone outage to some extent, as most network providers’ services were disrupted. However, AT&T experienced significant damage for a longer period. Later, AT&T claimed that the outage was caused by the application and execution of an incorrect process.
Some people are attributing cell network outages (AT&T, Verizon) in the U.S to last night’s X-class #SolarFlare. However, flares only cause radio degradation on the *dayside* of the Earth. As you can see below, the U.S was not affected by the event. So it’s just a coincidence! https://t.co/8EQxLV2qVJ pic.twitter.com/A5kImCmStC
— Dr. Ryan French (@RyanJFrench) February 22, 2024
Why White House involved in investigating the AT&T network Outage?
The outage began early in the morning, and three-quarters of the service was restored by 10:15 a.m. CT. This prompted the White House to involve the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to investigate the AT&T outage
According to Kirby, the Department of Commerce experienced some disruptions due to the outage, but they were not severe.
The outage impacted people’s ability to reach emergency services by dialing 911, as reported by government departments in several U.S. cities.
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The FCC stated that it was investigating the incident, while the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), a unit of DHS, mentioned that it was collaborating with AT&T to understand the cause of the outage.
AT&T Network Outage was not Cyber Attack
At 10:15 a.m. CT, AT&T confirmed that three-quarters of the service had been restored. By 2:10 p.m., they announced that services had been fully restored to all customers.
Initially, many speculated that the outage could have been caused by a cyber attack or possibly impacted by solar flares. However, AT&T later confirmed that the issue was caused by the application and execution of an incorrect process used during the expansion of their network, and not by a cyber attack.
In the aftermath of the outage, experts recommended that people identify Wi-Fi hotspots and learn how to use Wi-Fi calling. They also advised having contacts with different service providers, enabling users to call 911 in case of emergencies.