T-mobile Data Breach Announced

Welcome to 2021! Now, did you know before we left 2020, that there was one more wonderful surprise from the year that just seemed to keep on giving.....T-mobile and it's data was hacked ...AGAIN.

Considering with the merger that they went through last year acquiring Sprint, it put them in the top 3 spot as far as wireless companies go. So, if you are one of the many T-mobile customers, perhaps you may not even know there was an issue, or should I say hack, that took place in in December 2020 that was just disclosed. Sadly, the announcement was pretty quiet...as a matter of fact you really had to search deep on the T-mobile site to find it, I know I did.

Even then it's pretty vague. They disclosed that they discovered an unauthorized access to some customers’ account information, including the data that T-Mobile makes and collects on its customers in order to provide cell service.

According to the T-mobile announcement:

“Our cybersecurity team recently discovered and shut down malicious, unauthorized access to some information related to your T-Mobile account. We immediately started an investigation, with assistance from leading cybersecurity forensics experts, to determine what happened and what information was involved. We also immediately reported this matter to federal law enforcement and are now in the process of notifying impacted customers.”

The information that was obtained in the hack is called "proprietary network information" or "CPNI", this may include call records, like when a call was made, how long, caller’s phone number and the destination phone numbers. The statement did say that other more damaging information like names, home address, email addresses, or any kind of account passwords.

If you recall T-mobile is no stranger to cyber attacks, they also had a major one back in 2018. My issue is why not be up front with your customers. Let people know in a more timely manner. It can only help with the trust factor when such breaches occur.

That's my 2-cents, what are your thoughts?