The parent company of Frontier Communications, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the US, reported that on April 14 a cyberattack led to the disruption of many company operations. After detecting a third-party intrusion into its IT systems, Frontier shut down much of its IT network to prevent the intrusion from spreading.
“Based on the Company’s investigation, it has determined that the third party was likely a cybercrime group, which gained access to, among other information, personally identifiable information,” Frontier reported in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Communication (SEC).
Frontier didn’t specify whether the personally identifiable information (PII) belongs to employees or customers, or both, or how many may have been affected.
“As of the date of this filing, the Company believes it has contained the incident and has restored its core information technology environment and is in the process of restoring normal business operations,” Frontier told the SEC on April 18.
Frontier reportedly informed law enforcement of the cyberattack and hired cybersecurity experts to repair its computer systems.
The partial shutdown of company IT systems mostly affected back-office operations, but some customers still reported outages of their internet service. Others reported that the Frontier mobile app wasn’t working and customer service phone lines were taking them to prerecorded messages instead of live agents.
As part of its filing with the SEC, Frontier said that it didn’t believe the cyberattack or disruptions to its operations would have lasting “material” or financial impact.
Frontier Communications is the 8th largest telecommunications company in the US, with $5.75 billion in revenue in 2023 and a market capitalization of $6.14 billion. Its core business is providing fiber-optic internet services to customers in 25 states. Its ancillary services include broadband networking, VoIP, and voice messaging services. The company is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.