Cyberattack against T-Mobile - Data of 40 million-plus exposed

Under the latest data breach for T-Mobile customers, names, Social Security numbers, and driver’s licenses information and uses of ID for over 40 million people who applied for T-Mobile credit were exposed.

Also exposed were the 7.8 million customers of T-Mobile that currently used the service on a monthly basis. Their data was also compromised. Fortunately, account numbers pin and passwords or bank financial information for almost 50 million records of account holders at T-Mobile were not compromised.

T-Mobile reported on Wednesday and confirmed that almost 150,000 T-Mobile prepaid customers’ information such as phone numbers, account pins, names were exposed in the data breach. T-Mobile is actively resetting all the pins on these accounts for its users. Boost customers and previously Sprint prepaid customers and Metro by T-Mobile customers did not have their names and pins exposed in the data breach.

T-Mobile will be giving all customers two years of free identity protection. All customers were alerted to change their pin numbers while the investigation is still going on.

T-Mobile will be giving all customers two years of free identity protection. All customers were alerted to change their pin numbers while the investigation is still going on.

7.8 million current T-Mobile customers who pay monthly for phone service also appear to have been compromised. No phone numbers, account numbers, PINs, passwords, or financial information from the nearly 50 million records and accounts were compromised, T-Mobile said.

T-Mobile said it has been urgently investigating the highly sophisticated cyberattack against T-Mobile systems, and in an effort to keep our customers and other stakeholders informed the company is providing the latest information it has on this event and some additional details:

· Late last week we were informed of claims made in an online forum that a bad actor had compromised T-Mobile systems. We immediately began an exhaustive investigation into these claims and brought in world-leading cybersecurity experts to help with our assessment.

· We then located and immediately closed the access point that we believe was used to illegally gain entry to our servers.

· Yesterday, we were able to verify that a subset of T-Mobile data had been accessed by unauthorized individuals. We also began coordination with law enforcement as our forensic investigation continued.

· While our investigation is still underway and we continue to learn additional details, we have now been able to confirm that the data stolen from our systems did include some personal information.

· We have no indication that the data contained in the stolen files included any customer financial information, credit card information, debit or other payment information.

· Some of the data accessed did include customers’ first and last names, date of birth, SSN, and driver’s license/ID information for a subset of current and former postpay customers and prospective T-Mobile customers.

· Our preliminary analysis is that approximately 7.8 million current T-Mobile postpaid customer accounts’ information appears to be contained in the stolen files, as well as just over 40 million records of former or prospective customers who had previously applied for credit with T-Mobile. Importantly, no phone numbers, account numbers, PINs, passwords, or financial information were compromised in any of these files of customers or prospective customers.

· As a result of this finding, we are taking immediate steps to help protect all of the individuals who may be at risk from this cyberattack. Communications will be issued shortly to customers outlining that T-Mobile is:

Immediately offering 2 years of free identity protection services with McAfee’s ID Theft Protection Service.
Recommending all T-Mobile postpaid customers proactively change their PIN by going online into their T-Mobile account or calling our Customer Care team by dialing 611 on your phone. This precaution is despite the fact that we have no knowledge that any postpaid account PINs were compromised.
Offering an extra step to protect your mobile account with our Account Takeover Protection capabilities for postpaid customers, which makes it harder for customer accounts to be fraudulently ported out and stolen.
Publishing a unique web page later on Wednesday for one stop information and solutions to help customers take steps to further protect themselves.

· At this time, we have also been able to confirm approximately 850,000 active T-Mobile prepaid customer names, phone numbers and account PINs were also exposed. We have already proactively reset ALL of the PINs on these accounts to help protect these customers, and we will be notifying accordingly right away. No Metro by T-Mobile, former Sprint prepaid, or Boost customers had their names or PINs exposed.

· We have also confirmed that there was some additional information from inactive prepaid accounts accessed through prepaid billing files. No customer financial information, credit card information, debit or other payment information or SSN was in this inactive file.

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