Looks like hackers couldn’t resist T-Mobile’s hot pink branding: The mobile carrier said yesterday that the data of 40 million former and prospective customers + 8 million current users had been breached.
The leaked information: first and last names, dates of birth, drivers license information, and social security numbers. T-Mobile said there’s “no indication” any financial details have been compromised.
News of the massive breach first broke on Sunday, when Vice uncovered a post in an underground internet forum offering to sell the private data of 30 million T-Mobile users for six bitcoin, or about $270,000. In response, T-Mobile said it was “working around the clock to investigate claims being made that T-Mobile data may have been illegally accessed.” So claims = mostly confirmed.
T-Mobile could be fined and penalized by authorities if they determine the company mishandled user data and/or didn’t effectively handle the breach after the fact.
Zoom out: This cyberattack comes about a week after $600+ million worth of cryptocurrency was stolen from decentralized finance platform Poly Network by hackers (and then returned), and months after Colonial Pipeline and meat supplier JBS both suffered debilitating cybersecurity breaches. — JW
