What We Learned About the T-Mobile Breach

On August 17th, T-Mobile confirmed they suffered a major data breach where hackers obtained the personal information of more than 50 million past, present, and potential customers. The information leaked included first and last names, date of birth, SSNs, and driver’s license information. T-Mobile only found out about the breach once they were alerted that an anonymous individual was shopping for the stolen information on an online forum.The T-Mobile breach is the largest data breach of 2021 so far. Additional breaches include:

1. Astoria Company – 30 million
2. ParkMobile – 21 million
3. ClearVoice – 15.7 million
4. Jefit – 9 million
5. Infinity Insurance – 5.72 million

This is the fifth incident T-Mobile has suffered in the past three years. Previously, in 2019, the organization’s email vendor was hacked revealing both customer and personal information. The organization also experienced two smaller hacks in 2020 where information was breached illegally and names, addresses, phone numbers, and billing information were accessed.T-Mobile has addressed the most recent attack in their most recent blog post, where they outline what information was stolen and what customers can do to protect themselves against any potential threats. Whether you are a T-Mobile customer or not, you should consider changing your password and PIN immediately to negate any potential threats to your account or phone numberOverall, breaches are up 38% for the year, and it’s on track to be another record year of cybersecurity incidents. It is imperative for businesses to take the proper precautions to protect their businesses, customer information, and employee information.