2 Million T-Mobile Customers Affected by a Data Breach

T-Mobile, a wireless company with 77 million customers, announced last week that hackers stole the personal information of two million of their customers.

According to the release posted on T-Mobile’s website regarding the breach, hackers accessed customers’ names, billing zip codes, phone numbers, email addresses, account numbers and account types in a breach. Fortunately, financial and other more sensitive data – like credit card information – and social security numbers were not compromised in the breach.

Because account passwords and credit card information were not stolen – and some people have data breach fatigue – T-Mobile customers may decide to ignore the alerts they receive concerning this breach. With data breaches being the new norm, it’s important for everyone to be vigilant. We recommend consumers monitor all activities on their financial and credit card accounts, lock down their login information by using two-factor authentication, review any information from their insurance companies and/or explanation of benefits, and we strongly urge everyone to sign up for an identity protection service that includes credit and identity monitoring. However, everyone should be weary that not all monitoring services will protect them equally. We encourage individuals who are evaluating identity protection services, and businesses who are evaluating such third-party services to offer, to compare the monitoring capabilities and the quality of the customer service.

Comprehensive monitoring services should include internet surveillance (including the Dark Web and Deep Web), compromised credential monitoring, and credit monitoring. The monitoring should also include alerts so that if a customer’s information is detected, they can quickly assess and work with resolution experts to minimize any impact.