![]() ![]() They take your sensitive data, place it under lock and key, and then watch it closely for any suspicious activity. Unlike T-Mobile, ID theft protection providers don’t leave unprotected routers sitting around (which is how, sources say, 3 hacker Binns broke in). Entrusting your personal info (SSN number, driver’s license, even your bank details) to a third party may be a big and scary step - especially for hardened security geeks who use a VPN just to check their email in the morning. T-Mobile actually did have the right idea when they steered breach victims to an identity monitoring subscription. Obviously, you won’t be able to make any loans or expensive purchases while your credit is frozen, but you also won’t be buying a four-bedroom villa in Hawaii for a fraudster. And, remember, you’ll need to fill out a separate form with each bureau to put the kibosh on dark web grifters. Just make sure you’re thorough and contact all three three main bureaus in charge of issuing credit reports: Equifax, Experian and Transunion. You know where that story is going.Ĭredit freezing is actually pretty easy. If you don’t, any criminal who gets their hands on it can literally apply for a credit card or a loan in your name. Now.įreezing your credit isn’t daily digital hygiene, but if your SSN just got hacked, you should do it now. If you’re a T-Mobile hack victim, on the other hand, there are a few steps you should consider taking immediately to mitigate the damage at ground zero and batten down the hatches on your personal details moving forward. In fact, with the insane spate of fraud reports rolling into the FCC’s inbox in the past two years, 2 everyone should be taking online security and identity theft protection very seriously these days. No matter how you feel about T-Mobile’s “we got hacked badly but here’s how you can avoid getting hacked” online security philosophy, ramping up your digital hygiene is always a good idea. What Can I Do if Hackers Got into My T-Mobile Account? In Sievert’s own words: “These arrangements are part of a substantial multiyear investment to adopt best-in-class practices and transform our approach.” Which may leave many of the 54 million-plus Americans, whose driver’s license numbers are now for sale in lots on the dark web, wondering why “best-in-class practices” weren’t already part of T-Mobile’s approach.Īdditionally, T-Mobile is offering victims two years of McAfee ID Theft Protection services on the house, while promoting their own Scam Shield as part of an ongoing consumer “scam awareness” campaign. Long-term, T-Mobile is now working with both Mandiant and KPMG LLP on getting their cybersecurity up to snuff. Besides resetting pay-as-you-go user PINs and reaching out to the millions of past (and future) T-Mobile customers whose SSN were swiped, T-Mobile has taken some immediate steps that CEO Sievert outlined in his official mea culpa 1 on the T-Mobile blog. Since the mammoth mid-August attack, T-Mobile has been in full damage control mode. For former and prospective T-Mobile users whose data got filched - all 40 million of you - expect a call from T-Mobile in the next couple of weeks. (Check out now if you haven’t already.) If not, assume the worst. If you somehow managed to escape the hack, you’d already know: T-Mobile put a banner up on your account page. No Sprint prepaid or Boost customers seem to have been looted. ![]() The cybergrinch responsible stripped T-Mobile prepaid user account info, too, all the way down to the PIN, which T-Mobile has proactively reset for all primary account holders. “Brute” is actually apt here because the T-Mobile cyberattack was indiscriminate and massive, gobbling up even the data of past and potential customers, including T-Mobile Metro account holders. Once inside, Binns used brute force to tunnel into millions of user accounts. They’ve also figured out how he got in: through T-Mobile’s testing environments. T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert says that with the help of the cybersecurity experts at Mandiant, they’ve at least identified the bad actor (reportedly a 21-year-old American named John Binns). About the only thing the fraudsters didn’t swipe were credit card details. The gargantuan data breach compromised nearly 55 million current, former, and prospective customer accounts - and not just usernames and passwords. T-Mobile, the global telecommunications giant, had been hacked. A little over two weeks ago, the news dropped like a bomb. ![]()
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