T-Mobile PR Crisis with Data Breach that affects 40 million Customers
T-Mobile has reported the sixth breach on its data in only three years. The recent breach affects 40 million customers whose data and records have been compromised. This includes their unique device numbers, social security numbers, and Driver’s license numbers.
News emerged recently of unauthorized access to T-Mobile’s systems when a list of the records of 30 million T-Mobile customers was posted on a dark web forum. The posters insisted they had another 70 million records apart from the ones posted, bringing the total compromised data to about 100 million.
Ongoing Investigation and Statement
T-Mobile has only confirmed the breach of 40 million records as an investigation is being conducted. Of this figure confirmed, 7.8 million are current customers of the company, and 40 million records belong to prospective and former customers that applied for T-Mobile credit.
The extent of the breach hasn’t been verified by the company, though the estimated 100 million records affected means that almost all the customers of T-Mobile are affected, and everyone one of the company’s subscribers should prepare their minds for the worst-case scenario.
The US telecom giant and second-largest mobile carrier in the country confirmed the data breach, blaming it on what it called a sophisticated cyberattack, and admitted that the personal information of millions of customers was stolen, though they insist no financial information was breached as a result of the attack.
The company released a statement on August 18, saying that further information was being analyzed and that more revelations would soon be made. T-Mobile also insisted that the holes in its systems that hackers used to expose customer data have all been blocked.
One Too Many Times
This isn’t the first time that sensitive data of T-Mobile customers will be breached and exposed; the company has had a disturbing history of data security lately. This marks the 6th time an incident like this has occurred to T-Mobile, raising questions and concern about the steps the telecommunications giant took to prevent such occurrences.
In 2018, hackers gained access to the billing Zip Codes, phone numbers, account numbers, names, and email addresses of T-Mobile customers. Just a year ago, customer addresses, names, email addresses, account numbers, and billing information were stolen by hackers.
Looming PR Crisis
T-Mobile has endured serious backlash following the latest breach and the company’s reputation now needs cleaning up in light of all the bad press it has been getting since the news broke. One of the many errors committed by T-Mobile since the crisis began is that another company reported information about its crisis before it did.
Worse still, they didn’t know about the attack on their servers until the hackers posted the stolen information for sale. The hack suffered was reportedly not a complicated one as there was a back door left open that hackers used to perfect the breach.
One of the positives is the company’s declaration of an offer of two years of free identity protection services.
