T-Mobile Confirms Hacker Stole Data From 37 Million Customers Accounts

T-Mobile is in the process of telling 37 million customers their data was stolen by a hacker earlier this month.

As Bloomberg reports(Opens in a new window), the breach was discovered on Jan. 5 and T-Mobile said(Opens in a new window) it was shut down within 24 hours. The good news is, T-Mobile’s network and systems weren’t breached directly. Instead, the hacker used “a single Application Programming Interface (or API) to obtain limited types of information” from customer accounts.

No passwords, payment card information, social security numbers, government ID numbers, or other sensitive financial information was taken. However, the hacker did manage to grab the “name, billing address, email, phone number, date of birth, account number, and information such as the number of lines on the account and service plan features” for around 37 million customer accounts.

If you are one of the affected T-Mobile customers, expect the company to get in touch. As the information stolen was, as T-Mobile describes it, “the type widely available in marketing databases or directories,” there is currently no talk of compensation or identity protection services for impacted customers.

T-Mobile also points out that while it regrets this incident occurred, “we, like any other company, are unfortunately not immune to this type of criminal activity, we plan to continue to make substantial, multi-year investments in strengthening our cybersecurity program.”