T-Mobile Agrees To $350 Million Settlement Over 2021 Data Breach
T-Mobile has agreed to pay $350 million to settle a class action lawsuit focused on the 2021 data breach at the carrier that exposed information on more than 76 million people.
On Friday, T-Mobile announced the news in an SEC filing(Opens in a new window) and in court documents(Opens in a new window), making it the largest data breach settlement second only to Equifax’s agreement to pay $650 million.
In T-Mobile’s case, the $350 million would go toward reimbursing victims ensnared in the breach and paying the legal fees from the prosecuting attorneys behind the class action lawsuit. In addition, T-Mobile plans on spending another $150 million over the next two years to bolster the company's data security.
Last year’s breach at the mobile carrier was particularly bad since it exposed social security numbers, addresses, dates of births, and driver’s license ID information for some former and current T-Mobile subscribers.
The data was exposed in a cyber attack involving a hacker, who managed to steal 106GB of data that also included information on prospective T-Mobile customers. The hacker then proceeded to sell the information to other cybercriminals on forums.
“During the weeks and months following the Data Breach, Plaintiffs allege that they and other class members suffered actual and attempted identity theft and fraud, including unauthorized credit applications filed in their names,” the proposed settlement says. This included hackers using the stolen information to break into victims’ banking and online accounts.
“Similarly, numerous Plaintiffs and other class members have been notified by third-party monitoring companies that their PII (personal identifying information) was located on the dark web as a result of
Read more on pcmag.com
