According to a Thursday confirmation by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), probe has been initiated into the recent security breach in the wireless network of AT&T, whereby the email addresses of the users of the Apple iPad
3G were exposed.

Noting that the FBI’s Washington field office agents are overseeing the investigations, FBI spokeswoman Lindsay Godwin said in an e-mail: “The FBI is aware of these possible computer intrusions and has opened an investigation to address the potential cyber threat.”

The FBI also said that the final venue conducting the bureau’s probe might change depending upon factors like the place of residence of the potential victims.

The data breach came to light when a group called Goatse Security released the hacked addresses of 114,000 iPad users – including bigwigs from the US military and top executives at media, technology and finance companies
- to Gawker Media’s Valleywag website.

Saying that the email addresses were obtained via a program on the AT&T website, Escher Auernheimer - a Goatse Security analyst - added in a phone interview that the addresses were released “completely in good faith,” on the condition that the Valleywag site will not publish them.

Further revealing that the FBI had not yet contacted any one at the Internet security firm, Auernheimer said that the firm had taken “absolute steps” for ensuring that the data which was compromised would not affect anybody.