In September, news broke that a number of T-Mobile customers data was hacked. Primarily those that had applied for service with T-Mobile, even those that had opened an account with the company a few years ago. Many customers received a letter from either T-Mobile or Experian, and sometimes both, about what happened, and how to protect themselves from their identity being stolen. But since then, we haven’t heard much about the data breach that opened records of 15 million people. Experian, today, revealed that they have become the target of various class action lawsuits, related to the data breach. Experian is still working to find out what exactly happened and why records for 15 million people that applied for T-Mobile service were compromised.
Experian noted when the breach happened that the attackers got access to consumers names, addresses, social security numbers, date of birth as well as ID Numbers. However their bank information and credit cards were not accessed in the breach. Which is both good and bad. Good that bank information was kept safe, but with data like social security numbers, names and date of birth altogether, that’s a recipe for some disastrous events, like identity theft. Experian did say that the data breach at their North American servers was an isolated incident. So those in other parts of the world need not worry about their data being accessed by these attackers.
It’s really not surprising that there are a “number” of class action lawsuits hitting Experian now, seeing as there were over 15 million consumers data accessed in this attack on their database. Additionally, attorney generals in Connecticut and Massachusetts were preparing for investigations into the security breach that happened on September 15th. Experian also noted that it was not possible to determine the repercussions that this hack could have on their company in the future, as well as what it might cost them in these class action lawsuits. They also stated that it was hard to predict the scope of the regulatory investigations as well as government investigations following the breach.
If you were one of those that got a letter from T-Mobile and/or Experian regarding this attack, you may also be getting some information about these class action lawsuits, and a small check in a few months.