Private data of 40 million T-Mobile customers stolen in massive cyber hack

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According to the hackers, about 100 million customers have been affected by the hack (Image: GETTY)

Due to a huge data breach, the private data of about 40 million T-Mobile customers has been put up for sale by hackers. While the US mobile operator – the third largest in the country – claims only 40 million have been affected, the hackers claim to have the personal data of 100 million customers. To put that claim in perspective, T-Mobile only has about 104.79 million customers in the United States.

Hackers stole critical data, including driver’s licenses and social security numbers, before making it available to the highest bidder on a hacking forum. Fortunately, T-Mobile customers’ banking information does not appear to be affected by the data breach, which came to light a few hours ago. T-Mobile was only notified of the massive breach after attempts to sell the stolen information were published in news reports.

“Importantly, no phone numbers, account numbers, PINs, passwords or financial information have been compromised in any of these customer or potential customer files,” T-Mobile tried to reassure panicked customers in its latest statement.

However, birth dates, surnames and driver’s license details have all been obtained by the hackers… and are now available for purchase. The PIN codes, names and telephone numbers of some 850,000 prepaid customers were also involved in the breach. T-Mobile has already reset the PINs of all compromised prepaid accounts. It has recommended that all postpaid customers do the same.

Although T-Mobile previously operated in the UK, it merged with Orange in 2012 to become EE. It is now owned by BT, which has not announced any evidence of data breaches.

Commenting on the data breach, Threat Intelligence security expert Jack Chapman said: “This could be one of the most serious breaches of sensitive consumer information we’ve seen this year, potentially affecting 100 million people. Cyber ​​criminals use T-Mobile’s data to fill their wallets, and unfortunately, it’s T-Mobile’s customers who pay the price.

“I advise all customers affected by this breach to be wary of any unexpected communications they receive now, whether that be via email, text, or phone calls. Subsequent attacks could potentially damage the information obtained through this data breach. to trick people into sharing more personal information that can be used for identity and financial fraud.”

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Neela
Neela
I work as the Content Writer for Gaming Ideology. I play Quake like professionally. I love to write about games and have been writing about them for two years.

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