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A security flaw at AT&T has allowed hackers to access the email addresses of thousands of iPad users in the U.S., AT&T has confirmed.

The security breach affects at least 114,000 iPad users who are customers of AT&T's 3G wireless service in the U.S. AT&T is the only wireless carrier for the iPad in the United States.The iPad was unveiled in January 2010 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.The iPad was unveiled in January 2010 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press)

Hackers were apparently able to exploit a vulnerability in the logging-on process to obtain subscriber data.

Gawker Media was given the list of compromised email addresses by a group called Goatse Security.

According to Gawker, the list "includes thousands of A-listers in finance, politics and media, from New York Times Co. CEO Janet Robinson to Diane Sawyer of ABC News to film mogul Harvey Weinstein to Mayor Michael Bloomberg."

AT&T said it would notify all iPad users whose email information may have been compromised.
Problem 'fixed'

"We take customer privacy very seriously and while we have fixed this problem, we apologize to our customers who were impacted," the company said in a statement.

AT&T said only email address information was compromised, but security experts note that criminals could still use that to launch a malicious attack.

Since hackers would know that the person behind the email was an iPad user at AT&T, they could craft an email to make it look like it came from either Apple or AT&T. If those emails included some kind of malware, users could find their computers infected by merely opening the email. Users could also be fooled into providing more useful information, such as credit card numbers.

Apple announced last week that it had sold two million iPads worldwide since early April. The tablet computer went on sale in Canada two weeks ago.