Big data hacks have become common, but that doesn’t make them any less worrisome.
In the latest such incident, T-Mobile (TMUS) – Get a free report It said that information on 37 million of its customers was obtained by a “bad actor.”
The hack was disclosed in a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, January 19.
The hacker had access to the data for nearly six weeks before it was detected, according to the filing.
They first entered the system on November 25, 2022, but were not detected until January 5.
The attack is highly embarrassing for T-Mobile as it was the second such attack in two years.
On August 16, 2021, T-Mobile disclosed a hack that obtained data from 7.8 million current customers and 40 million past or prospective customers who had applied for credit with T-Mobile.
As for the details of the customer data that was obtained, T-Mobile said in the filing that it included “name, billing address, email, phone number, date of birth, T-Mobile account number, and information as the number of lines”. in the account”.
The company said that “our systems and policies prevented access to the most sensitive types of customer information, and as a result, based on our investigation to date, customer accounts and finances were not directly put at risk by this.” event”.
While this is small consolation for the victims, it appears that less data was compromised in the latest attack, compared to the 2021 incident.
In that case, the Social Security numbers, addresses, dates of birth, and driver’s license information of at least some customers or applicants were compromised.
The company said it was confident it had shut down the access point that allowed the most recent data to be stolen. In addition, he said that “we have notified certain federal agencies about the incident and are working simultaneously with law enforcement.”
T-Mobile said that “we have begun notifying customers whose information may have been obtained by the bad actor in accordance with applicable state and federal requirements.”
