Though end-of-year reporting will better outline the business impact on T-Mobile, the average total cost of a data breach is almost $3.9 million, according to IBM's 2020 Cost of a Data Breach report. T-Mobile, after acquiring Sprint in 2018, is among the top-three cellular carriers in the U.S., next to AT&T and Verizon. This conclusion was drawn after a July survey found companies in the tech and telecommunications industries typically have the strongest cyber governance practices. At the time, VICE Magazine claimed to have communicated with the hacker behind the breach via online chat, and to have been offered T-Mobile USA. The repeated incidents raise questions about T-Mobile’s cyber risk governance and management practices," Moody's said. Just under a year ago, the US arm of telecomms giant T-Mobile admitted to a data breach after personal information about its customers was offered for sale on an underground forum. mobile carriers have disclosed cyber incidents in recent years, none has done so as frequently as T-Mobile. However, the company's previous breaches "appear to be more immaterial compared with this recent incident," Moody's said. Earlier this month, Moody's said "the incident is credit negative because of the financial, reputational and legal costs associated with data breaches," while amplifying T-Mobile's previous hacks. The incident could have far-reaching effects from a business standpoint. The breach will also raise questions for customers protected by the California Consumer Privacy Act and other state data privacy laws. While class action lawsuits mount against T-Mobile, the Federal Communications Commission is also launching an investigation into the breach because of the telecommunication company's failure to protect consumer data. It is unknown if Binns was working alone or with other dark web affiliates. T-Mobile also said the data stolen from their systems. On August 17, 2021, T-Mobile confirmed that approximately 47 million people were impacted by the data breach. The company says they located and closed the access point they believe was used to gain entry to their servers.
The auctioneer was looking for $270,000 in exchange for millions of Social Security numbers and driver licenses. According to T-Mobile, a bad actor compromised T-Mobile’s systems. More than 54 million people are at risk of identity. Vice's Motherboard was first to report the data leak, after a dark web forum listed the customer data for sale. The information of more than 50 million T-Mobile customers was compromised in a breach. The 21-year-old used stored credentials to illegally access more than 100 servers. The hacker who claimed credit, John Binns, gained access to T-Mobile's customer database because "t heir security is awful," he said, in messages to The Wall Street Journal. The breach was a lesson in how storing unused data can turn into a liability. T-Mobile's data breach, the latest in a string of breaches in recent years, compromised upwards of 54 million current, former and prospective customers.