T-Mobile Confirms It Was Hacked (vice.com) 20
T-Mobile confirmed hackers gained access to the telecom giant's systems in an announcement published Monday. Joseph Cox, reporting at Motherboard: The move comes after Motherboard reported that T-Mobile was investigating a post on an underground forum offering for sale Social Security Numbers and other private data. The forum post at the time didn't name T-Mobile, but the seller told Motherboard the data came from T-Mobile servers.
We have determined that unauthorized access to some T-Mobile data occurred, however we have not yet determined that there is any personal customer data involved," T-Mobile wrote in its new announcement. "This investigation will take some time but we are working with the highest degree of urgency. Until we have completed this assessment we cannot confirm the reported number of records affected or the validity of statements made by others," the announcement added.
We have determined that unauthorized access to some T-Mobile data occurred, however we have not yet determined that there is any personal customer data involved," T-Mobile wrote in its new announcement. "This investigation will take some time but we are working with the highest degree of urgency. Until we have completed this assessment we cannot confirm the reported number of records affected or the validity of statements made by others," the announcement added.
Social Security Numbers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why in the world would T-Mobile have anyone's Social Security Numbers?
Re:Social Security Numbers? (Score:5, Insightful)
See previous story, people have theorized its for credit checks when creating accounts. Fine. Stupid, but fine, that's the system we have. On the other hand, WHY THE FUCK WERE THEY STORING THEM? The credit-check should be a one-off, instantaneous thing.
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That's asinine. a) Who's buying that many things from them? b) After initial pull, your own relationship with them should be sufficient c) If not b then ask for it again then discard
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It could be for liability reasons in case someone disputes something appearing on their credit report. T-Mobile would want to be able to prove they used the social security number the customer provided them.
That said, what is worse for them liability wise: exposing SS#s or risking a disputed charge?
There are also regulations regarding credit and finance so it's possible that it's required to be kept for x number of years. The who regulatory system is a mess so it wouldn't surprise me.
when you ban burner phone and force people to id (Score:2)
when you ban burner phone and force people to id what will you use?
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T-Mobile has a prescreen form [t-mobile.com] to deal with the payments on a mobile device as part of this $0 down offer. You can avoid that, which is a credit check and a type of loan, by paying for your device up front.
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For people who do installment plans. They do a basic credit check. Verizon and ATT both do this as well.
The crappier part is the IMEI numbers. I hope they won't have to reissue SIM cards for all their customers. That would suck.
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SIMs contain ICCID, not IMEI info. The ICCID is the thing that ties a phone to an account at a service provider. The IMEI just identifies the phone, unless you're on an ancient SIM-less CDMA-only device. Those are scheduled to be culled in the near-term unless Dish's temper-tantrum gets more traction.
T-Mobile has been sending SIMs out to Sprint customers for months now in an effort to get them migrated over from legacy Sprint to the "new" T-M network. So...there's a lot of churn in the ICCID data, possibly
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Why in the world would T-Mobile have anyone's Social Security Numbers?
They have SSNs for their employees.
An annual event! (Score:5, Insightful)
At least they are consistent!
2017 - https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
2018 - https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
2019 - https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
2020 - https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
I dumped T-Mobile about 17 months ago (Score:3)
I wonder if they "kept" my information.
And for "Hacks" of this nature, there should be a nice high minimum cash payout to each affected "customer" from the company who couldn't protect personal information.
No Thanks, I don't want another "free" year of credit monitoring.
So glad I'm a Sprint customer (Score:2)
It's not like our dumbass government would approve a huge merger between Sprint and T-Mobile that would reduce competition, raise prices and subject me to this shit.
Right?
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It's not like our dumbass government would mandate that once a credit check is done all data pertaining to the credit check plus the SSN must be purged, as if it had never been collected in the first place.
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>"It's not like our dumbass government would mandate that once a credit check is done all data pertaining to the credit check plus the SSN must be purged, as if it had never been collected in the first place."
While I agree that would be nice, it is not realistic. It is exactly because these companies report back your payment history to the credit unions that they "need" to retain the SSN. What is worse, is that companies that are NOT credit-related do it too- the electric companies and apartments are a
Nothing will get better (Score:2)
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