Data of 40 million customers compromised, says telecom giant T-Mobile

Telecom giant T-Mobile announced on Wednesday that the personal data of more than 40 million people, who applied for a credit scheme, has been exposed. The data breach included information like Social Security numbers, names and details of people’s driver’s licenses.

Even though account numbers, financial details, passwords, PINs and contact details were left uncompromised, according to the statements from the company, nearly 8 million customers who avail of monthly phone service may be impacted by the breach.

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Paul Furtado, an analyst from IT service company Gartner, addressed the previous data breaches faced by the telecom giant. However, he acknowledged that this time “the sheer numbers far exceed the previous breaches”, according to reports from news agency Associated Press.

He added, “Yes, they have a big target on their back but that shouldn’t be a surprise to them. You have to start questioning the organization. How much are they actually addressing these breaches and the level of seriousness?”

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T-Mobile also confirmed Wednesday that approximately 850,000 active T-Mobile prepaid customer names, phone numbers and account PINs were exposed. The company said that it proactively reset all of the PINs on those accounts. No Metro by T-Mobile, former Sprint prepaid, or Boost customers had their names or PINs exposed.

Late last week, T-Mobile announced that the company was initiating an investigation to probe a claim made on an online forum about personal data of over 100 million users being breached.

The company, which is based in the northwestern state of Washington in the United States, is one of the biggest telecom organisations in the country. Main rivals of the company include AT&T and Verizon.