T-Mobile has revealed that its cybersecurity unit detected and thwarted a customer data breach on August 20, resulting in unauthorized access to personal information of its subscribers. The incident marks yet another such issue for the company, with T-Mobile recently disclosing a similar problem resulting in unauthorized data access. That vulnerability left customer login logs exposed to hackers but was fixed in a relatively swift manner earlier this year.
Several days back, T-Mobile reported the data breach to authorities after the company discovered that some personal customer information such as names, billing zip codes, phone numbers, email addresses, and account numbers might have been potentially left in the hands of hackers. The incident did not affect more sensitive customer information such as credit card and social security numbers, or passwords. The breach happened despite T-Mobile’s safety measures put in place and there is no evidence that indicates customer accounts were compromised, though it may take some time before any potentially compromised information is used by bad actors, provided such info was actually stolen. In the meantime, T-Mobile customers who might have been affected by the breach will want to log in to check their account and change their password. It would also be wise to report any suspicious account activity to the carrier at once. T-Mobile has already sent notifications to affected customers about the issue and opened several customer service hotlines for those who need further assistance in securing and protecting their accounts.
This is not the first time that a major security incident affected T-Mobile over the course of the past few months. Earlier this year, a public service was issued in response to an industry-wide SIM hijacking scam. Due to the sheer sizes of their customer bases, wireless carriers remain a popular target for hackers in the United States and abroad.