The T-Mobile hack that was reported earlier this week has now been confirmed by the company itself. However, some of the details the company is providing differ from what the hacker claimed. T-Mobile admitted that 47.8 million records were exposed, and they didn't just belong to customers. Anyone who applied for a T-Mobile account could be at risk, regardless of whether they actually opened one or not.
T-Mobile hack: Official confirmation from the company
T-Mobile also confirmed that the personal data exposed includes social security numbers and driver's license information for "a subset" of people, while PIN codes for some accounts have also been stolen.
See also: Ford: Bug allowed breach of customer and employee data
What has happened?
On Monday, a hacker began offering for sale personal data that he said belonged to 100 million T-Mobile customers in the U.S. The posting on the hacking forum (where he chose to sell the data) did not mention T-Mobile, but the seller told Motherboard that he has obtained data related to over 100 million people and that the data came from T-Mobile servers […].
Based on the samples provided by the hacker, it was confirmed that the data was real and included: names, social security numbers, phone numbers, addresses, IMEI numbers, and driver's license information.
See also: T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon: What measures are they taking to reduce robocalls?
T-Mobile began investigating the hacker's claims and later confirmed that unauthorized access had occurred to its systems.
T-Mobile hack: Announcement
The carrier issued a statementdetailing the breach. According to the statement, the data that was exposed affects current and former customers, as well as people who had contacted T-Mobile with the intention of becoming customers in the future. Specifically, the company said:
"While our investigation is still ongoing and we continue to learn additional details, we were able to confirm that the data stolen from our systems contained some personal information.
We have no indication that the data contained in the stolen files included customer financial information, credit card details, debit or other payment information.
Some of the data included customers' first and last names, date of birth, SSN, and driver's license/ID information for a subset of current, former, and prospective T-Mobile customers.
Our preliminary analysis indicates that approximately 7.8 million current postpaid customer account details appear to be contained in the stolen records, as well as over 40 million former or prospective customer records. Most importantly, no phone numbers, account numbers, PINs, passwords or financial information were compromised in any of these customer or prospective customer records“.
However, prepaid customers' PIN codes have been exposed.
“We have already reset all PINs on these accounts to protect these customers and will notify immediately“.
See also: Guess reveals data breach after ransomware attack
T-Mobile says the hack did not affect any financial information or passwords, but the personal information that was exposed could put the company's customers at great risk. The information could be used for various scams.
“As a result, we are taking immediate action to help protect everyone who may be at risk from this cyberattack. Customer notifications will be issued soon, and T-Mobile is immediately offering two years of free identity protection with McAfee's ID Theft Protection Service“.
For added protection, T-Mobile customers should implement basic security practices on their accounts and change PINs.
Source: 9to5Mac
