Hackers Breach T-Mobile, Steal Personal Info Belonging To Millions

Customers who get their wireless service through T-Mobile may have had their data stolen. A portion of the service carrier’s 77 million customers had their data taken by hackers during a brief data breach that occurred earlier this week, according to a post on T-Mobile’s website.

Hackers got into T-Mobile’s database on Monday morning, the company said. Though the service carrier’s tech team was able to shut down the attack before it got out of hand, the hackers got away with the personal information of some users. Names, ZIP codes, email addresses, phone numbers and account numbers were stolen, but T-Mobile said no financial information or social security numbers were taken.

The company told Motherboard that about the hack affected around 3 percent of its customer base, or roughly 2 million customers. Anyone who might have had their data stolen was notified via automatic text messages from their service carrier.

“We take the security of your information very seriously and have a number of safeguards in place to protect your personal information from unauthorized access,” T-Mobile said. “We truly regret that this incident occurred and are so sorry for any inconvenience this has caused you.”

T-Mobile said that customers can dial 611 and talk to its customer support team if they have any concerns about the data breach.

This is not the first time T-Mobile customers have had their personal information exposed. In 2015, credit bureau Experian was hacked, which exposed millions of T-Mobile customers to data thieves. As a result, 15 million customers had their personal data stolen, which included more sensitive information than Monday’s hack. Social security numbers and drivers license numbers were reportedly taken, which T-Mobile CEO John Legere said made him “incredibly angry” at the time.

In May, a bug on T-Mobile’s website potentially opened up customer information to anyone who wanted to take it. It was reported by a researcher, who reported it to the company and had it fixed before it became a widespread problem.

T-Mobile stands to control the personal information of millions more wireless customers in the near future. The company plans to acquire Sprint, one of the other four major service providers, pending approval by the government.