AT&T has filed a lawsuit against three former Washington state employees and a California information technology (IT) company, claiming that they installed malware software on company computers to illegally create codes for unblocking customers' mobile phones. The United States carrier is suing the IT company and customer service reps for moving the devices to another carrier's network and then selling the handsets to turn a profit.
AT&T alleges that the customer service workers installed malware on its CPUs. This allowed Anaheim-based Swift Locks and other developers to access the carrier's gadgets.
The Swift Unlocks team then seemingly used the service representatives' authorizations to run a program that created unlock codes. Swift Unlocks accessed codes numbering "hundreds of thousands."
The scam earned the reps $2,000 every-other week. Before the illicit activity was discovered some of them had racked up $20,000, according to Engadget.
AT&T's lawsuit also mentions 50 defendants who developed the malware to conduct the alleged phone unlocking scheme. Their names were not listed.
By locking phones, carriers such as AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon guarantee that customers will stay with the company until their contract expires. If they opt out, they must buy the mobile phone.
Unlocking a smartphone eliminates the block. However, only a carrier can legally unlock a phone, which is done in situations such as after customers have paid off their mobile device's financing plan or carrier contract, according to Ars Technica.
In the lawsuit's documents AT&T argues that its phone locking software is critical because it subsidizes the device's cost. The carrier also uses term contracts to protect its investment in the handset.