- A 2021 T-Mobile data breach exposed millions of customer data
- Washington State Now Suing Telecommunications Giant
- Lawsuit Alleges T-Mobile Failed to Protect or Notify Customers
The US state of Washington is taking legal action against telecommunications giant T-Mobile for consumer protection failures following a data breach in 2021 that exposed up to 79 million consumers worldwide, including security numbers social of almost 184,000 clients in the state.
As part of Washington’s lawsuit, the state claims that T-Mobile failed to “adequately protect the sensitive personal information of more than 2 million Washingtonians.” This failure, the state claims, left those consumers vulnerable to fraud and identity theft.
The lawsuit claims the breach was “entirely avoidable” and explains that T-Mobile had years to patch key vulnerabilities in its cybersecurity systems and failed to adequately address them. The lack of security monitoring meant that T-Mobile was unaware of the breach.
T-Mobile customers cheat
The lawsuit alleges that T-Mobile deliberately downplayed the severity of the breach to affected consumers and omitted critical information, which in turn affected the customer’s ability to “properly assess their risk of identity theft or fraud.”
The company sent text messages to affected customers, but did not include legally required information. Customers who did not have their card details or social security numbers compromised were informed, but those who did were not given any information about the exposure.
According to the lawsuit, T-Mobile used “weak credentials” and an “easily guessable username and password,” and the exposed data appeared for sale on the dark web almost immediately after being stolen.
T-Mobile recently agreed to pay a fine of more than $15 million to the FCC as part of a settlement agreement following a series of high-profile data breaches between 2021 and 2023. The company was also ordered to make significant changes in your cybersecurity infrastructure. and adopt stronger identity and access management frameworks.
