T-Mobile U.S. Inc (TMUS.O) on Wednesday said an investigation into a data breach revealed that personal data, including social security numbers of its more than 40 million former and prospective customers was stolen by hackers.
The stolen files also included data from 7.8 million existing T-Mobile wireless customers, drivers licences of customers, dates of birth, first and last names.
It, however, said that there was no indication of financial details being compromised.
The company, which had 104.8 million customers as of June, acknowledged the data breach on Sunday.
This was after U.S.-based digital media outlet, Vice, first reported that a seller had posted on an underground forum offering for sale some private data, including social security numbers from a breach at T-Mobile servers.
Vice said the seller claimed that 100 million people had their data compromised in the breach. The seller was offering data on 30 million people for six bitcoin or around 270,000 dollars.
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Reports later suggested that the asking price had slumped and the entire data was being sold for just 200 dollars.
Reuters has not been able to check the veracity of the forum’s post.
T-Mobile’s data breach is the latest high-profile cyber attacks as digital thieves take advantage of security weakened by work-from-home policies due the COVID-19 pandemic.
Earlier, crypto currency platform Poly Network lost 610 million dollars in a hack and later offered the hacker or hackers a 500,000 dollars “bug bounty”. (Reuters /NAN)
