T-Mobile Facing Another Lawsuit Over 2021 Data Breach

T-Mobile has been sued a second time over a 2021 data breach that impacted 80 million T-Mobile users. The consumer protection lawsuit comes from Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who says that T-Mobile had years to "fix key vulnerabilities" that could have prevented the data breach.

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According to Ferguson, T-Mobile knew that its systems had certain cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and the company did not do enough to address them. T-Mobile is also accused of misleading customers about its security practices, not notifying Washingtonians of the data breach in a timely matter, and downplaying the severity of the breach.

For years prior to August 2021, T-Mobile did not meet industry standards for cybersecurity and knew about these vulnerabilities. These included insufficient processes for identifying and addressing security threats and a systemic lack of oversight. In some cases, T-Mobile used obvious passwords to protect accounts that had access to customers' sensitive personal information. The 2021 breach was enabled, in part, when the hacker guessed obvious credentials to gain access to T-Mobile's internal databases.

T-Mobile's systems were breached in March 2021, but T-Mobile did not learn of the attack until August 2021. Hackers were able to obtain names, phone numbers, addresses, birth dates, social security numbers, driver's license and ID info, IMEI numbers, and IMSI numbers from T-Mobile customers, and that data was sold.

The hacker behind the attack said that T-Mobile's security was "awful" and that the breach occurred when an unprotected T-Mobile router was discovered, which led to access of T-Mobile's Washington data center.

T-Mobile apologized for the data breach and promised to prevent a future attack by establishing long-term partnerships with cybersecurity experts.

The lawsuit is seeking restitution for Washingtonians that were harmed in the data breach, along with injunctive relief to require improvements to T-Mobile's cybersecurity practices.

T-Mobile already paid $350 million to settle a class action lawsuit over the data breach in 2022, and it was fined $60 million by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) for failing to prevent or disclose unauthorized access to sensitive customer data.

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Top Rated Comments

Student of Life Avatar
25 weeks ago
Again fine not only the company but also make its executives offices personally liable. That’s how you get real accountability, when it impacts them personally.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
pdaholic Avatar
25 weeks ago
Why do they need social security and driver’s license numbers?!?
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
B4U Avatar
25 weeks ago
AT&T, you are next! ?
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Light_of_Consciousness Avatar
25 weeks ago

AT&T, you are next! ?
Seriously, I hope they get it good.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
coffeemilktea Avatar
25 weeks ago
Maybe if the cost of lawsuits becomes greater than the cost of implementing proper security measures, T-Mobile will actually start doing a good job when it comes to cybersecurity? ?
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sw1tcher Avatar
25 weeks ago

Why do they need social security and driver’s license numbers?!?
Social security number is needed to run a credit check since T-Mobile is basically extended credit to you when they provide post-paid mobile service, discounted or free mobile phones, etc.

How else are they going to get their money back if a customer fails to pay for service and runs off with a bunch of free iPhone 16 Pro's ('https://www.t-mobile.com/news/offers/t-mobile-iphone-16-apple-watch-10-savings')?



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Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)