For the 4th year in a row T-Mobile, a leading wireless network operator, has suffered a major data breach which this time appears to have affected nearly 50 million existing, former and prospective customers. T-Mobile became one of the largest mobile operators in the US, along with AT&T and Verizon, after merging with Sprint Corporation in 2020. Embarrassingly for T-Mobile, It would appear that the breach only came to light when hackers started advertising a data dump for sale that they claimed contained the Social Security numbers (SSNs), phone numbers, names, physical addresses, International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers, and driver’s license information for 100 million T-Mobile subscribers.

Following an investigation by T-Mobile, the company admitted they had found evidence of unauthorized access to some of their stored data including; full names, dates of birth, SSNs and driver’s license/ID information of around 48 million existing, former and prospective customers who had applied for credit with T-Mobile. In addition they found phone numbers, and account PINs had been compromised relating to 850,000 active T-Mobile prepaid customers.

Undoubtedly, the relevant regulatory authorities will be investigating the circumstances surrounding this latest data breach, in particular as it is the 5th customer data breach to occur in the space of 4 years!

While IT departments focus their attention on the actions of cyber criminals and continue to strengthen their defenses against external hackers, the threat associated with malicious or accidental insider (employee) actions can be overlooked. As a consequence, organizations could be leaving them open to an equally harmful data breach and potential non compliance penalties. For this reason, organizations need to consider a zero trust internal security strategy for their administrative processes, in particular their office based and remote working print environments.

Click here to read a recent case study that highlights how Ringdale’s FollowMe® Enterprise Print Management solution has helped a leading telecommunication company address their multi-site office based data security concerns.

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Source: Ringdale

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