The names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and more of fifteen million T-Mobile postpaid customers have been stolen, the carrier has confirmed today.
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The service provides a credit report from Experian upon enrollment, credit monitoring from all three nationwide credit reporting agencies, internet scans, access to specialized fraud resolution agents and more. While an investigation into the breach is ongoing, Legere said that the hacker or hackers were able to acquire information related to 15 million people, including new applicants between September 1, 2013 and September 16, 2015.
The site sent an inquiry to Experian on what sort of encryption was used, but they did not get any responses yet.
Experian, which gathers vast amounts of incredibly personal information on all Americans, made clear that hackers didn’t access its other computers that house that data.
Sridharan says there’s one important thing you can do to protect yourself today no matter who you do business with.
While no evidence has been found yet that data that was stolen has been used in an inappropriate manner, consumers are being encouraged to enroll in that program.
“As massive data breaches go, it could be worse: Experian and T-Mobile have both said that the hacked files didn’t include any credit card or banking data”, Wired reported. The outcry from users prompted T-Mobile US CEO John Legere to promise that a second option was in the works.
T-Mobile customers can sign up for two free years of credit monitoring services at www.protectmyID.com/securityincident, a service owned by Experian. This is no small issue for us.
“We are working with Experian to take protective steps for all of these consumers as quickly as possible”, he said in a public statement.
He stressed that no payment card details were obtained by the hacker.
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Whether or not this incident put T-Mobile and Experian’s business relationship at stake remains to be seen.
