T-Mobile – victim of a major hack

T-Mobile was the victim of a major hack through Experian. The latter is the company that processes T-Mobile credit applications. The hacker acquired personal data regarding approximately 15 million people. Some of these are T-Mobile clients. Others were people who applied at some point for a T- Mobile account. The data that was compromised includes names, birth dates and even social security numbers of T-Mobile customers and other persons whose data was processed by the company through the services provided by Experian.

It seems that the hacker managed to acquire information regarding people who applied for a T-Mobile account in the period between September 1, 2013 and September 16, 2015. Since sensitive data, such as name, address, social security numbers, ID numbers, Driver’s licence numbers were compromised, the attack is considered to be an extremely malicious one. Fortunately, it seems that the leaked information didn’t include bank account or credit card payment information, so at least this should not be a concern for T- Mobile clients.

T-Mobile representatives stated that their first concern is to announce everyone whose personal information might have been compromised due to the hack attack.  Existing and potential subscribers of T-Mobile will be announced of the hacker attack with written notifications and when logging into mytmobile.com. Also, the T- Mobile subscribers that may have been impacted by Experian’s data breach are offered two years of free credit monitoring and identity protection services.

It was also said in the press release that T-Mobile’s systems and network were not part of this intrusion, so Experian is the only one responsible for the security breach. On the other hand, it also seems that company was the only partner of Experian whose clients or potential subscribers were affected by the hack. This hack is of course a reason for the huge media company to conduct a thorough investigation and reconsider its partnership with Experian. We hope that the security of both Experian and T Mobile will be revised and that their clients won’t be further exposed to such risks.