According to a news item on AppleInsider, while both Apple and AT&T's websites effectively froze under the ordering workload yesterday, there are reports that some customer data was leaked.
The Mac newswire says that the alleged security leak problem occurred at the height of the pre-order meltdown, as customers tried to log into their online account on the AT&T site only to see another person's name and information when they attempted to pre-order the iPhone 4.
Reporter JR Bookwalter on the Mac Life website said that it would be "putting it mildly" to say that AT&T's servers failed on Tuesday, particularly for existing iPhone users trying to pre-order an iPhone 4 from either the telco or Apple.com's website.
"A major part of the order process is to verify customer eligibility for an upgrade so the shopping cart knows the correct price to charge for the update, but most potential customers kept seeing a wide variety of timeouts or worse yet, the site going down completely for a period of time", he said.
"While not being able to place a pre-order is frustrating enough, AT&T may have real trouble on its hands if the rumours of a security breach are true", he added.
Bookwalter says that, at first, AT&T seemed to brush off the reports, claiming they couldn't duplicate the problem at their end – "but they seem to be taking it more seriously now, especially in light of the recent iPad 3G security breach", he noted.
Mac Life quotes an AT&T spokesperson as saying: "We have received reports of customers inadvertently seeing the wrong account information during the iPhone 4 purchasing process."
"We have been unable to replicate the issue, but the information displayed did not include call-detail records, social security numbers, or credit card information. In the meantime, we are looking into this matter."
The Gizmondo newswire claims that a faulty software update on AT&T's systems may have been the cause of the online problems, and that "they now have evidence that credit card and other personal data may, in fact, have also been exposed during yesterday's meltdown."