The stolen records include critical personal information, such as names, dates of birth, social security numbers, and ID numbers. The breach did not include phone numbers, account numbers, PINs, or passwords. T-Mobile also said that no customer financial information, credit card details, debit, or other payment information were leaked.
Critical Personal Information Breached
Reports of the breach earlier this week claimed that the information of over 100 million customers was at risk. The Company’s initial findings fall short of this figure, which instead hovers around 49 million. The Company learned about the breach from an online forum, which claimed that a malicious actor had compromised their systems. T-Mobile immediately ran a comprehensive investigation into the claims, even calling in leading cybersecurity experts for the task. Following the investigation, they located and closed the vulnerable access point. However, T-Mobile reported that the actors stole records of over 40 million “former or prospective customers” who had applied for credit. Additionally, the breach compromised 7.8 million post-paid customers’ data. Over 850,000 pre-paid customers were also victims of the leak.
Increased Steps to Prevent Identity Theft Online
This is the fifth data breach that T-Mobile has faced in the last few years, dating back to 2018. In 2015, it was reported that hackers stole the personal information of 15 million customers. T-Mobile put out a statement saying they were taking the attack very seriously and were aiming to provide transparency in their investigation. The Company added a page on their website where customers can obtain security information, including shortcuts for customers to update their PINs and passwords. Additionally, T-Mobile is offering two years of identity protection services from McAfee free of charge. The page provides additional resources for users to check out. This includes using T-Mobile’s Account Takeover Protection capabilities, which lets users call their customer care number, activate the network’s scam blocking protection, and use anti-cam features such as Scam ID, Scam Block, and Caller ID. For more information on identity theft, how it became such a huge problem, and what you can do to protect yourself, check out our comprehensive document.
