T-Mobile Confirms Data Breach Exposed Personal Data Of Over 47 Million Americans

The confirmed 47 million records is still a significant number, as it represents nearly half of the 104 million customers that T-Mobile claimed during its Q2 2021 earning report.

"Yesterday, we were able to verify that a subset of T-Mobile data had been accessed by unauthorized individuals," said T-Mobile in a statement posted to its website. "We also began coordination with law enforcement as our forensic investigation continued."

The company went on to acknowledge details previously reported about the breach: customers' full names, birth dates, social security numbers, and driver's license information were ensnared in the breach. However, T-Mobile was quick to point out that financial information, including credit/debit card details, was not obtained by the hackers. In addition, phone numbers, passwords, and PINs were fortunately not compromised.

After completing a full analysis, T-Mobile says that 7.8 million postpaid customers were affected. The remaining 40 million records involve either former or prospective customers who applied for credit with T-Mobile in the past.

In the wake of this security breach, T-Mobile says it will offer affected customers two years of free identity protection (via McAfee ID Theft Protection). It will also create a special website designed to guide customers through dealing with the fallout from this latest breach.

"We take our customers' protection very seriously and we will continue to work around the clock on this forensic investigation to ensure we are taking care of our customers in light of this malicious attack," said an apologetic T-Mobile. "While our investigation is ongoing, we wanted to share these initial findings even as we may learn additional facts through our investigation that cause the details above to change or evolve."

At this time, T-Mobile has not provided details on when customers will be able to search to see if their data was included in the security breach, but the company plans to reach out "shortly."