BOSTON — The U.S. wireless carrier T-Mobile said Thursday that an unidentified malicious intruder breached its network in late November and stole data on 37 million customers, including addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth.
T-Mobile said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that the breach was discovered Jan. 5. It said the info exposed to theft — based on its investigation so far — didn’t include passwords or PINs, checking account or bank card information, Social Security numbers or other government IDs.
“Our investigation remains to be ongoing, however the malicious activity appears to be fully contained at the moment,” T-Mobile said, with no evidence the intruder was in a position to breach the corporate’s network. It said the info was first accessed on or around Nov. 25.
T-Mobile said it has notified law enforcement and federal agencies, which it didn’t name. It didn’t immediately reply to an e-mail in search of comment.
The corporate has been hacked multiple times lately. In its filing, T-Mobile said it didn’t expect the newest breach to have material impact on its operations. But a senior analyst for Moody’s Investors Service, Neil Mack, said in an announcement that the breach raises questions on management’s cyber governance and will alienate customers and attract scrutiny by the Federal Communications Commission and other regulators.
“While these cybersecurity breaches might not be systemic in nature, their frequency of occurrence at T-Mobile is an alarming outlier relative to telecom peers,” Mack said.
In July, T-Mobile agreed to pay $350 million to customers who filed a category motion lawsuit after the corporate disclosed in August 2021 that private data including Social Security numbers and driver’s license info had been stolen. Nearly 80 million U.S. residents were affected.
It also said on the time that it could spend $150 million through 2023 to fortify its data security and other technologies.
Prior to the August 2021 intrusion, the corporate disclosed breaches in January 2021, November 2019 and August 2018 wherein customer information was accessed.
T-Mobile, based in Bellevue, Washington, became certainly one of the country’s largest cellphone service carriers in 2020 after buying rival Sprint. It reported having greater than 102 million customers after the merger.
