Hackers had gained access to personal data of an additional 5.3 million customers of T-Mobile US Inc, the company said following results of an ongoing investigation into a data breach into the company.
The total number of current and prospective customers whose data has been compromised in this hacking incident now amounts to more than 53 million.
The incident of this massive hacking at the third largest wireless carrier of the United States was announced by the company earlier this week when it had said personal data of more than 40 million former and prospective customers was hacked together hit personal data of 7.8 million existing T-Mobile wireless customers.
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has also launched a probe into the hack.
T-Mobile said that investigations showed that personal data of 5.3 million additional wireless subscribers were affected by the breach in addition to 667,000 more accounts of former customers of the company.
The company said addresses, dates of birth and phone numbers of customers were among the data that was stolen. The firm however confirmed that it had so far found no evidence that financial information of customers such as credit card or other payment data had been accessed by the hackers.
Cases were filed by some T-Mobile customers for damages late on Thursday night in Seattle federal court. The customers alleged in a proposed class action that their privacy had been exposed by the cyberattack and they had been exposed to a higher risk of fraud and identity theft.
In recent times, there has been a series of cyberattacks on large corporations in the United States with hackers taking advantage of weakened user system privacy and security because of the work from home regimen implemented by companies since the coronavirus hit the country last year.
An alarm of a possible security breach that could have affected about 3 per cent of its 77 million customers was raised by the company in 2018.
"T-mobile has had 6 other data breaches in the past 4 years," said Doug Schmidt, a professor of computer science at Vanderbilt University. "It appears that their IT system is particularly vulnerable since they haven't been able to rectify their known security issues during this time period, which should be concerning to customers," Schmidt added.
T-Mobile said in a regulatory filing on Friday that while the investigation was ongoing, it was confident that it had "closed off the access."
(Source:www.reuters.com)
The total number of current and prospective customers whose data has been compromised in this hacking incident now amounts to more than 53 million.
The incident of this massive hacking at the third largest wireless carrier of the United States was announced by the company earlier this week when it had said personal data of more than 40 million former and prospective customers was hacked together hit personal data of 7.8 million existing T-Mobile wireless customers.
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has also launched a probe into the hack.
T-Mobile said that investigations showed that personal data of 5.3 million additional wireless subscribers were affected by the breach in addition to 667,000 more accounts of former customers of the company.
The company said addresses, dates of birth and phone numbers of customers were among the data that was stolen. The firm however confirmed that it had so far found no evidence that financial information of customers such as credit card or other payment data had been accessed by the hackers.
Cases were filed by some T-Mobile customers for damages late on Thursday night in Seattle federal court. The customers alleged in a proposed class action that their privacy had been exposed by the cyberattack and they had been exposed to a higher risk of fraud and identity theft.
In recent times, there has been a series of cyberattacks on large corporations in the United States with hackers taking advantage of weakened user system privacy and security because of the work from home regimen implemented by companies since the coronavirus hit the country last year.
An alarm of a possible security breach that could have affected about 3 per cent of its 77 million customers was raised by the company in 2018.
"T-mobile has had 6 other data breaches in the past 4 years," said Doug Schmidt, a professor of computer science at Vanderbilt University. "It appears that their IT system is particularly vulnerable since they haven't been able to rectify their known security issues during this time period, which should be concerning to customers," Schmidt added.
T-Mobile said in a regulatory filing on Friday that while the investigation was ongoing, it was confident that it had "closed off the access."
(Source:www.reuters.com)
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