T-Mobile Sued Again Over 2021 Data Breach

Illustration of store T-Mobile (photo: T-Mobile)

JAKARTA - T-Mobile is again being sued by the state of Washington due to a data breach that occurred at the company in 2021, which caused 79 million of its users' personal data to be leaked.

Based on a report from The Verge, the lawsuit filed by Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson began with a cyberattack that began in March 2021 and was not known until T-Mobile disclosed the breach in August.

The lawsuit states that T-Mobile is considered to have failed to address cybersecurity vulnerabilities, which allowed hackers to access sensitive customer data.

T-Mobile is also considered to have failed to notify more than two million Washington residents who were affected by the hack. For this reason, the state of Washington accuses T-Mobile of downplaying the severity of the breach.

The 79 million personal data that was leaked includes personal information from current, former, and prospective customers including their names, phone numbers, physical addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and driver's license/ID numbers.

"This significant data breach was entirely avoidable. T-Mobile had years to fix the major vulnerabilities in its cybersecurity systems and failed,” Ferguson said in a written statement on their official website.

Ferguson also mentioned that the text message sent by T-Mobile when the incident occurred was very brief, and did not reveal the scope of the violation Overall, T-Mobile only told customers that debit and credit card information was not exposed, but did not mention that social security numbers and other personally identifiable information were compromised.

Ferguson’s lawsuit seeks civil penalties and damages for the Washington residents who were harmed. The lawsuit also seeks an injunction requiring T-Mobile to improve its cybersecurity policies and procedures, as well as increase transparency in its communications about cybersecurity to its customers.