[German](US) mobile carrier T-Mobile is investigating whether there was a data leak or hack. This is because 100 million customer records, some of which reveal very detailed information, were offered in an underground forum, allegedly from this provider. The provider is investigating this possible data protection incident, but is keeping a low profile.
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Data offered in an underground forum
It was an offer that was posted on an underground forum. A person offered there 30 million (US) social security numbers and of driver's license licenses, as Motherboard writes on Vice.
It must be 100 million user data. The person is demanding 6 Bitcoins ($270,000 or about 229,000 euros) for a subset of this data. In a chat with Motherboard, the source wrote that it was "T-Mobile USA. Full customer info" and added:
I think they already found out because we lost access to the backdoored servers.
However, the data had been downloaded locally and stored in various places as a backup. According to the seller of the data, several T-Mobile servers were attacked.
T-Mobile USA investigates the incident
T-Mobile USA says that they are aware of this forum post and are currently investigating the whole thing internally. T-Mobile USA responded to an inquiry from Motherboard:
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We are aware of claims made in an underground forum and have been actively investigating their validity. We do not have any additional information to share at this time.
From then on, there was silence, as T-Mobile did not respond to further inquiries.
T-Mobile US Inc. is one of the largest wireless carriers in the United States of America, competing with AT&T Wireless, U.S. Cellular and Verizon Wireless. The company was formed in 2001 through Deutsche Telekom's acquisition of VoiceStream.
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