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Massive Data Breach in T-Mobile
Find out about how it happened ? When it happened ? And how this could have been avoided ?
Over the last week, T-Mobile confirmed that a massive information breach had exposed the private info of about 50 million individuals,. The breach included names, addresses, and Social Security numbers. The information belongs mostly to individuals who applied for accounts with T-Mobile and provided the data for a credit check. That means that even people who aren’t customers are likely affected if they ever tried to open an account .
Response from T-Mobile
The response from T-Mobile has been unsatisfactory. For instance, I am a client who has nonetheless received a corporate communication regarding the breach. However, T-Mobile is talking to news outlets and clarifying that “no financial information or credit or debit card information” was compromised.
Impact of the breach
Even worse, this method of SIM-swapping enables hackers to steal an enormous sum of money. It’s as if someone is in a position to convince a phone carrier that they’re the other person. T-Mobile is not doing all it can to inform customers about the massive data breach that affected almost fifty million individuals. In response, the company did publish a blog post with information for affected customers but has not–as far as we can find–reached out to customers directly aside from a text message that said:
“In addition, T-Mobile has discovered that unauthorized access to some of your data, such as your name, address, telephone number, and account passwords, occurred. None of this data contained sensitive information such as credit or debit card data. We take the protection of our customers seriously. Learn more about practices that keep your account secure and general recommendations for protecting yourself: t-mo.co/Protect. “
Our views on it
The message seems like a gross statement of how the company handled the situation. It’s most likely a best practice to assume that your SSN was compromised since it probably happened anyway. Also, not all T-Mobile customers received a text notification, leading them to wonder whether they have been affected or not. In response to the data breach, T-Mobile tried to make the situation worse than the hacker who took the data.
As for the companies we give our information to, we expect them to protect that data. That’s not unreasonable. Also not unreasonable is an expectation that if someone steals our information, those companies should be upfront and transparent about what happened, what they are doing about it. If they can’t protect the data, they should let us know what we need to do to protect ourselves.
What can you do to protect yourself ?
Fortunately, there are few steps we can do:
- Protect your account from unauthorized access by changing your password to something secure. If user names and passwords weren’t stolen, T-Mobile allows users to access their accounts with their phone numbers.
- To prevent unauthorized individuals from opening credit in your name, place a freeze on your reports. The three major credit bureaus allow this method to be used.
- With T-Mobile’s new account protection service, you can add your account for free. This will prevent unauthorized individuals from transferring your number to another carrier.
The good news is that these steps are not that arduous. It’s just that doing so is very important to T-Mobile’s customers.
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