Julie Clover
US carrier T-Mobile recently managed to prevent a major network breach before customers were affected, Bloomberg reports. Hackers were able to penetrate the Edge routing infrastructure by breaking into a router owned and operated by T-Mobile.
T-Mobile was able to detect the suspicious activity, blocking the hackers from further access to its systems. There were apparently attempts to penetrate deeper into T-Mobile's network, but T-Mobile was able to detect the intrusion early on, so customer data was not compromised. Bloomberg reports that people familiar with the situation have confirmed that T-Mobile knows how its network was hacked and the hotspot has been taken down.
It’s unclear when the hack described in the Bloomberg article occurred or who carried out the attack.
In recent weeks, Chinese state-sponsored hackers have broken into multiple telecom companies to gain access to smartphones belonging to U.S. politicians. On November 15, T-Mobile confirmed that its systems had been accessed by Chinese hackers, but said it had not seen “a significant impact on T-Mobile’s systems or data” and had “no evidence of impact or leakage of any customer information.”
Back in 2021, T-Mobile suffered a major data breach in which attackers gained access to the data of more than 50 million users. The data included names, phone numbers, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, driver's license and ID information, IMEI numbers, and IMSI numbers, and the hackers put it all up for sale.
At the time, T-Mobile promised to beef up security with multi-year investments and a long-term partnership with cybersecurity experts Mandiant.
The 2021 hack ultimately cost T-Mobile $60 million after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) fined the company for failing to prevent or disclose unauthorized access to sensitive customer data.
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