T-mobile Is Once Again Being Sued Over Its 2021 Data Breach

Washington authorities is suing T-Mobile for allegedly failing to reside cybersecurity vulnerabilities that enabled a hacker to expose nan individual accusation of 79 cardinal group nationwide. The user protection suit revenge by Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson connected Monday stems from a cyberattack that began successful March 2021 and went unnoticed until T-Mobile disclosed nan breach successful August.

The filing asserts that T-Mobile grounded to reside definite accusation vulnerabilities that nan institution was alert of “for years,” and did not decently notify overmuch than 2 cardinal Washington residents who were impacted by nan breach. The suit accuses T-Mobile of downplaying nan severity of nan breach, which exposed nan individual accusation of current, former, and prospective customers — including their names, telephone numbers, beingness addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and driver’s licence / ID numbers.

The notifications that T-Mobile issued astir nan accusation breach violated nan Consumer Protections Act by omitting cardinal accusation that made it difficult for group to measurement if they were astatine consequence of characteristic theft aliases fraud, according to nan filing. The suit too says that T-Mobile “did not meet manufacture standards for cybersecurity” for years anterior to nan hack, and utilized “obvious passwords” to protect accounts that could entree personification information.

“This important accusation breach was wholly avoidable,” Ferguson said successful a statement. “T-Mobile had years to spread cardinal vulnerabilities successful its cybersecurity systems — and it failed.”

This isn’t nan first clip that Washington authorities has taken action against T-Mobile, pinch Ferguson having successfully persuaded nan institution to make clear nan limitations of its “no-contract” wireless activity strategy backmost successful 2013.

Ferguson’s latest suit is seeking compensation for customers impacted by nan 2021 breach and a tribunal bid that would portion T-Mobile to bring its cybersecurity practices successful connection pinch manufacture standards, alongside improving transparency and relationship astir early accusation breaches. This follows T-Mobile paying $350 cardinal successful 2022 to settee a class-action suit stemming from nan 2021 hack, and a further $15.75 cardinal bully past twelvemonth complete an FCC investigation into its repeated cybersecurity incidents.