☕️ Big breach

Data on ~110 million AT&T users got hacked... July 13, 2024 [View Online]( | [Sign Up]( | [Shop]( [Morning Brew]( PRESENTED BY [Pendulum]( Good morning. SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star are hosting tonight’s Kids’ Choice Awards to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the cartoon, which premiered on July 17, 1999. Hey, Patrick, we thought of something funnier than SpongeBob turning 24. Twenty-five . —Matty Merritt, Molly Liebergall, Sam Klebanov, Abby Rubenstein, Neal Freyman MARKETS Nasdaq 18,398.45 +0.63% S&P 5,615.35 +0.55% Dow 40,000.90 +0.62% 10-Year 4.189% +0.0 bps Bitcoin $57,913.11 +1.27% Wells Fargo $56.54 -6.02% Data is provided by *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 8:00pm ET. [Here's what these numbers mean.]( - Markets: Stocks swung upward yesterday, finishing the week strong. The Dow [closed above]( 40,000 for the second time ever. - Finance: Big banks kicked off the Q2 earnings season, with JPMorgan, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo reporting. Investment banking revenue was up as deals have started coming back, even as continued high interest rates took a toll on their loan and deposit businesses. Wells Fargo, which relies most on the businesses hit by inflation, saw its profit drop year over year. [Investors are wary]( All three banks’ stock fell.  TELECOMS [Data breach exposes nearly 110m AT&T users’ records]( [Blurry people silhouettes walking by AT&T logo.]( Cros Garcia/Getty Images Hackers now know how often you called for carryout from the Thai place across the street in a six-month period. AT&T [confirmed]( yesterday that the company experienced a massive data breach in which an unknown entity stole phone records from almost all of its nearly 110 million customers. The telecommunications giant discovered the breach in April and started an investigation. It found that the hacker accessed the data through an illegal download that targeted a third-party app called Snowflake, which also manages data for other big-name companies like Ticketmaster. At the DOJ’s urging, AT&T agreed to delay telling the public so the government could evaluate the breach as a national security risk. AT&T claims the data hasn’t been leaked publicly as of right now. - In a very “I know what you did two summers ago” twist, the stolen info includes records of every phone number customers called or texted between May 1, 2022, and October 31, 2022. - The contents of texts and calls and the times of communications weren’t in the data, but the number of times the callers interacted and call duration were included in the breach. It might not seem like a huge deal for some cybercriminal to know how many times you called your mom two years ago, but the information stolen has been described as giving the hackers “NSA-level” access to customers. Phone numbers can be easily matched to individuals with tools readily accessible on the internet—and even without the contents of communications, everything from private business deals to romantic affairs could be exposed. Big picture: This is AT&T’s second big data breach in the last year. The company disclosed in March that Social Security numbers and other personal info of 73 million current and former customers had been leaked onto the dark web. AT&T says this breach is unrelated to the previous one.—MM PRESENTED BY PENDULUM [Say hi to this un-hunger hormone]( [Pendulum]( Huge news: Top doctors from Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Berkeley, and Stanford have come together to create something next-level—you gotta tune in for this one. Introducing Pendulum. They’re revamping gut health with a smorgasbord of supplements that affect GLP-1, the “un-hunger hormone” that helps [curb cravings and reduce appetite]( Yep, the numbers speak for themselves. 91% of Pendulum users reported reduced overall cravings, and 88% reported reduced sugar cravings.** And right now, you can [score 20% off your first month]( of GLP-1 Probiotic from Pendulum. [Give your gut a glow-up](. WORLD [Tour de headlines](#) [Alec {NAME} hugs a member of his legal team after involuntary manslaughter charges against him were dismissed by a judge.]Alec {NAME} hugs a member of his legal team. RAMSAY DE GIVE/POOL/AFP via Getty Images The manslaughter case against Alec {NAME} was dismissed. A New Mexico judge [tossed]( the involuntary manslaughter charge against Alec {NAME} stemming from the fatal 2021 shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust. The judge axed the charge mid-trial after {NAME}’s legal team claimed prosecutors buried evidence about ammunition. The case was dismissed with prejudice, which means it cannot be refiled, and the yearslong legal saga between prosecutors and {NAME} is over—a decision that brought the actor to tears in the courtroom. StubHub put off its IPO until after summer. The battle for Song of the Summer has been fierce, but the battle for IPO of the summer not so much, and, in light of those uninspiring market conditions, the ticket-seller has reportedly decided [to delay]( going public until after Labor Day. The company, which is targeting a $16.5 billion valuation for its market debut, intended to bring its IPO plans out of stealth mode this week, but decided to wait since there haven’t been enough big offerings lately to determine investor interest, per CNBC. Judge nixes Giuliani’s bankruptcy, allowing creditors to come after him. A federal bankruptcy judge [threw out]( Rudy Giuliani’s bankruptcy case yesterday, saying the former NYC mayor and Trump advisor had failed to be transparent about his finances. This will permit those Giuliani owes money to—including a pair of Georgia election workers who won a $148 million defamation verdict over his falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election—to try to seize his assets. SPACE [The world’s most active rocket had an oopsie]( [Falcon 9 rocket launches on July 8]( Falcon 9 rocket launches earlier this week. Anadolu/Getty Images The FAA grounded the star pupil in SpaceX’s fleet yesterday after the rocket suffered an inflight mishap during a crewless satellite mission, [ending its streak]( of 300+ successful launches over more than seven years. The Falcon 9 broke apart mid-flight after an engine failed. The “rapid unscheduled disassembly” happened after the self-landing booster disengaged (it successfully returned to the ground) but before the rocket was able to properly place 20 Starlink satellites, which are likely unrecoverable. Similar incidents have occurred recently with SpaceX’s still-being-developed Starship rocket, but they’re rare for the older and more experienced Falcon 9. Before this week, Falcon 9 hadn’t failed at all since a 2016 launchpad explosion, and it hadn’t failed mid-flight since a 2015 uncrewed NASA cargo mission. This is bound to slow SpaceX down. The rocket company must investigate the incident, fix the problem, and get the FAA’s signoff before Falcon 9—which has launched every two to three days this year—can fly again. At least two missions are in jeopardy. Falcon 9 rockets were supposed to carry an entrepreneur-funded private crew at the end of the month and a NASA mission to the International Space Station in mid-August, but the investigation into this week’s incident could take weeks or even months to complete.—ML TOGETHER WITH BAMBOOHR [BambooHR]( Anxious about AI? You’re not alone. BambooHR’s head of AI, Alan Whitaker, fielded AI questions from HR pros around the world in this new [e-book](. It covers everything from how automation can simplify manual processes to how HR pros can influence AI’s role in the field. [Check it out](. SOCIETY [Indian heirs’ wedding dazzles the world]( [Ambani wedding newlyweds ]( Vaishnav/Getty Images A weekend-long wedding bash so opulent that it makes Gatsby’s parties look like humble get-togethers kicked off in Mumbai, India, yesterday. The newlyweds probably aren’t relying on a gift registry for fancy kitchenware: Anant Ambani, the son of India’s richest person, Mukesh Ambani—who’s net worth Forbes estimates at $124 billion—is marrying Radhika Merchant, the daughter of wealthy pharmaceutical entrepreneurs. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former UK PMs Boris Johnson and Tony Blair, Kim and Khloé Kardashian, boxer Mike Tyson, and actor John Cena are all rumored to be in attendance this weekend. Diamond-encrusted knot The nuptials cap a series of [over-the-top events]( celebrating the couple over the past five months, which has boosted the global clout ofof India’s growing billionaire class. All the festivities combined cost an estimated $600 million and involved a VIP guestlist you might confuse with the Davos or Met Gala rosters. Pre-wedding functions included: - An 800-guest Mediterranean cruise with the Backstreet Boys, among others, performing. - Events featuring a purpose-built glass palace, a 5,000-drone light show, and a Rihanna concert (for which she reportedly earned $6 million). - Mark Zuckerberg donning [traditional Indian garb](. And Ambani family members [flashing]( jumbo jewels. Diamonds sparkle, but...not everyone thinks weddings and wealth displays are a match made in heaven. Critics claim the events’ extravagance underscores India’s massive inequality.—SK STAT [Prime number](#) [A coffee mug with the Tesla logo on it filled with a drink with a question mark in the milk]Emily Parsons Not since Milton’s stapler has disappearing office supplies caused this much consternation. During a tense staff meeting addressing union conflicts at a Tesla factory outside Berlin, one plant manager raised a different concern: the facility’s 65,000 missing [coffee mugs](. Plant manager Andre Thierig told some of the complex’s 12,000 workers he was sick of ordering new mugs and would ban cutlery from the breakroom if the cups didn’t stop vanishing, according to German news outlet DW. “Statistically speaking, each of you already has five Ikea coffee cups at home,” he said. NEWS [What else is brewing](#) - [EU regulators]( say X’s paid blue check verification system deceives users. - [Some big Democratic donors]( have put ~$90 million in pledges to a super PAC on hold if President Biden won’t step aside and let someone else run as questions about his ability to win continue after a poor debate performance. - [Meta]( plans to remove restrictions that were put on former President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts when he was allowed back onto the platforms after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. - [Hallmark]( is debuting a streaming service, so you can pause your big city life and learn about the magic of Christmas on demand. It’ll go by the very creative name Hallmark+. RECS [Saturday To-Do List graphic] Get the inside scoop: Tour an [ice cream cone factory](. Fan the flames: A chemistry professor explains how [fire-breathing dragons]( could work (if they were real). Listen up: A ranking of the [best movie soundtracks](. Watch: A [satisfying video]( of how granite goes from a quarry to a kitchen counter. Lean on each other: Working parenthood is never easy—but having a [support system]( makes all the difference. We partnered with Delta + The Female Quotient to learn how working moms can create support networks. [Read the interview]( *A message from our sponsor. GAMES [The puzzle section](#) Brew crossword: You’ll want to take up bird-watching after completing today’s crossword. [Solve it here](. Open House Welcome to Open House, the only newsletter section that thinks normal elevators don’t have a nice enough view. We’ll give you a few facts about a listing and you try to guess the price. 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