AT&T’s $177 Million Data Breach Settlement Won Final Approval, With Payments of Up to $5,000 Due Only After the Appeals Period Ends

A federal judge in Texas has signed off on AT&T’s $177 million settlement over two 2024 data breaches, but approval is not the same as payday. The official settlement website says the court “granted final approval of the Settlement on October 2, 2026,” and that payments to class members will be made only “after any possible appeals are resolved.” Customers who filed claims before last December’s deadline can receive up to $5,000 for documented losses tied to the first breach and up to $2,500 for the second.

Judge Ada E. Brown Approved the Deal on Oct. 2

The case, In re: AT&T Inc. Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, MDL No. 3:24-md-03114-E, is before U.S. District Judge Ada E. Brown of the Northern District of Texas, according to the settlement site. It was combined for settlement purposes with a related case, In re Snowflake, Inc. Data Breach Litigation, which is pending before Judge Brian Morris in the District of Montana.

AT&T agreed to the settlement without admitting wrongdoing. NBC Chicago reported that the company continues to deny it did anything wrong and settled to avoid the cost and uncertainty of a long court fight.

The final approval came more than eight months after the Jan. 15, 2026 fairness hearing listed on the settlement site. The court’s filings, including the settlement agreement and AT&T’s position on opt-out requests, are posted on the settlement’s documents page.

Two Breaches, Two Funds

The $177 million is split between two separate funds. A settlement notice issued by the administrator, Kroll Settlement Administration, describes “a $149 million all cash fund” for the first incident and “a $28 million all cash payment” for the second.

The first breach, labeled AT&T 1, involved customer data from 2019 or earlier that was released on the dark web in March 2024. NBC Chicago reported that about 7.6 million current and 65.4 million former account holders were affected, and that the leaked information included Social Security numbers and passcodes. The class covers “all living persons in the United States whose data elements were included in the AT&T 1 Data Incident,” according to Kroll’s notice.

The second breach, AT&T 2, involved call and text records of nearly all AT&T customers from May through October 2022, plus a small group from Jan. 2, 2023. AT&T said at the time that the data was “illegally downloaded” from its workspace on a third-party cloud platform, according to NBC Chicago. The company said the content of calls and texts was not exposed. That class covers account owners and line users whose call records were involved.

How the Payments Are Calculated

The settlement site lays out two kinds of payments for each fund. For AT&T 1, class members with documentation can receive “up to $5,000” for losses in 2019 or later. Those without documented losses fall into tiers: people whose Social Security numbers were exposed are in Tier 1 and receive five times the Tier 2 amount, while Tier 2 members receive a pro rata share of the net settlement fund.

For AT&T 2, documented losses on or after April 14, 2024, can be reimbursed up to $2,500. Account owners without documented losses can receive a Tier 3 pro rata share. The site says the pro rata amounts are not yet known. NBC Chicago reported that final amounts depend on documented losses, the total number of claims, and costs such as attorneys’ fees.

Some people were caught in both breaches. NBC Chicago reported that these “overlap” class members can collect from both funds, and the station’s earlier coverage of the claim deadline put the combined maximum at up to $7,500 for class members affected by both incidents.

That same report listed the kinds of personal information exposed in the first incident: addresses, Social Security numbers, birthdates, passcodes, billing account numbers and phone numbers. The tier structure reflects that difference, with the largest non-documented payments reserved for people whose Social Security numbers were part of the leak.

Why the Checks Are Not Out Yet

Final approval starts a clock rather than ending one. Settlement administrators told NBC Chicago that “there may be appeals from [the approval decision] and resolving them can take time.” If no one appeals, the settlement becomes effective once the appeal window closes, and distribution follows. If an objector does appeal, payments wait until that appeal is decided.

The window for changing course closed long ago. Class members who wanted to keep the right to sue AT&T on their own had to opt out by Nov. 17, 2025, which was also the deadline to file an objection, according to the settlement site.

The settlement site lists no payment date. It says only that benefits “will be made only if the Court approves the Settlement and after any possible appeals are resolved.”

The claim deadline was Dec. 18, 2025, and it has passed, so the payments are limited to people who already filed. NBC Chicago reported that the administrator’s emails about the settlement come from [email protected]. Questions can go to the administrator at (833) 890-4930, or by mail to AT&T Data Incident Settlement, c/o Kroll Settlement Administration LLC, P.O. Box 5324, New York, NY 10150-5324, according to the settlement site.

Claimants in other consumer cases face their own timelines, including the Dec. 1 deadline in Amazon’s $309.5 million returns settlement, where claims are still open.

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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.

Image: Farragutful – CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikimedia Commons