(UnitedVoice.com) – Data breaches leave millions of Americans vulnerable. Security leaks have become a constant lurking danger in an age where individuals rely so heavily on technology to get them through life. Recently, T-Mobile customers became acutely aware of that fact. The company has experienced multiple security breaches in the last five years — and it just had another one.
Massive Data Breach
On January 19, T-Mobile US, Inc filed a report with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealing a massive company breach. An unidentified culprit stole 37 million customers’ data in November. That included their dates of birth, addresses, and phone numbers.
T-Mobile claimed it was investigating the incident and determined the thieves didn’t compromise customers’ credit cards, bank accounts, Social Security numbers, PIN numbers, and other government IDs as part of the breach. However, the probe is still ongoing. The company didn’t realize an outside source had compromised its customer information until January 5.
The filing from T-Mobile claims the company has fully contained the incident, saying the hacker wasn’t able to “breach or compromise [the company] systems or [its] networks.” Additionally, the company’s SEC statement said T-Mobile has begun a “substantial multi-year investment working with” cybersecurity experts to fix corporate security issues.
Previous Breaches
The most recent breach is at least the sixth time since 2018 the company has experienced a security failure. According to Wired, the company’s cybersecurity is so bad it has developed a reputation for data breaches.
Hackers managed to access their system once in 2018, once in 2019, twice in 2020, and perpetrated a massive breach in 2021. In 2022, the company agreed to pay $350 million to settle class action lawsuits that impacted over 76 million current, prospective, and former customers. The money went into a fund to pay out to those impacted by the security failure.
Like the recent incident, T-Mobile didn’t know they had suffered a data breach in 2021 until VICE reported hackers were selling the data of more than 100 million people. The information included Social Security numbers, names, addresses, driver’s license information, IMEI numbers, and other information that could potentially prove devastating for customers.
T-Mobile also agreed to put aside $150 million to invest in cybersecurity. That is what the company referenced when it told the SEC that it was investing in “substantial” security measures. The company has 110 million US customers. The continued incidents represent a major personal security problem. Unfortunately, the measures the company has implemented haven’t gone far enough.
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