T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert personally addressed the issue regarding the wireless network's data breach. He wrote a letter to the customers apologizing for what happened this month.
The data breach has affected more than 50 million customers, including the former ones.
T-Mobile Apologizes to Customers
The stolen data included complete names, phone numbers, birth dates, addresses, social security numbers, ID information, driver's license, IMEI numbers, and IMSI numbers was stolen and has been allegedly sold on the dark web.
Sievert stated that they know they didn't live up to the expectations and failed to protect their customers. He then went on to say that the company is frustrated about what happened and that keeping all customer data safe should have been taken more seriously.
Sievert added that preventing attacks like this is a top priority for them.
The hacker, John Binns, said in his interview with The Wall Street Journal that the security of T-Mobile is awful. He said that he discovered an unprotected T-Mobile router in July, and he used that to access the company's data center in Washington, D.C, where he was able to get in via stored credentials.
Sievert stated that the company is now coordinating with law enforcement on a criminal investigation and that they cannot disclose any details about it.
The wireless network has now notified all T-Mobile customers about the breach, and they are working on reaching out to all former customers, according to MacRumors.
Customers affected can visit T-Mobile's official website as they created a separate page dedicated to the attack. The page has tools that people can use to get McAfee ID Theft Protection for free.
They can also set up Scam Shield and use the Account Takeover Protection service.
The company has teamed up with cybersecurity experts at Mandiant and with consulting firm KPMG LLP to prevent a future data breach.
The network is now planning a multi-year investment into tightening its security.
T-Mobile's Record of Data Breaches
In 2019, the company suffered a data breach that affected more than 1 million customers. Their personal information was exposed, including their account number, billing address, phone number, and complete name.
The company immediately alerted all of their customers back then, but they did not give details about the incident in their official account.
The security team had shut down unauthorized access to all prepaid data customers.
Wireless networks are required to notify customers if any of their personal data is leaked as it is under telecoms regulations.
Although T-Mobile was vague about the details of the incident, it was enough to let the customers know that they should be changing their usernames and passwords for protection.
A company representative told TechCrunch that less than 1.5% of customers were affected by the incident. The company had 75 million users in 2019.
Obviously, the company has not taken any serious measures to tighten the security of its databases since it has suffered three other data breaches since then.
Related Article: T-Mobile is Investigating an Underground Forum for Alleged Giant Data Breach
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Written by Sophie Webster
