T-Mobile Breach Put 37M Customers At Risk, Will Likely Book Significant Expenses

T-Mobile US, Inc TMUS identified a data hack on Jan. 5 for 37 million current postpaid and prepaid customer accounts.

The company promptly dedicated external cybersecurity experts to stop the activity after tracing the source within a day. 

T-Mobile believes the hacker first breached data through the impacted Application Programming Interface (API) starting Nov. 25.

See Also: Ryan Reynolds' Mint Mobile In T-Mobile's M&A Crosshairs?
The hacker stole data, including names, billing addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, T-Mobile account numbers, and information such as the number of lines on the account and plan features.

In 2021, a hacker stole the personal information of more than 13 million active and 40 million prospective T-Mobile customers. 

T-Mobile settled a class-action suit related to that breach for $500 million last year, Bloomberg reports. The Bonn, Germany-based company also disclosed breaches in previous years, including 2020.

“Unfortunately, we do see victims get revictimized,” said Jackie Burns Koven, head of Chainalysis Inc, in a Bloomberg interview. “This is not the first data breach that has affected T-Mobile.”

The company said there might be “significant expenses” in connection with this most recent incident. 

Various companies, including  Microsoft Corp MSFT, Samsung Electronics Co, Ltd SSNLF, Nvidia Corp NVDA, Okta Inc OKTA, Uber Technologies, Inc UBER suffered data hacks.

The growing cyberattacks coincided with the pandemic when the whole world resorted to online activities for work, recreation, and obtaining daily needs.

The companies held the notorious extortion-focused hacker group Lapsus$ responsible for the breaches.

Price Action: TMUS shares traded lower by 1.61% at $137.61 on the last check Thursday.

Next: Ransomware Victims Are Refusing To Pay Attackers — But Is It Making A Dent Against Cyberattacks?