T-Mobile Learns From Past Breaches, Manages to Stop New Attack

[MacRumors]

U.S. carrier T-Mobile recently managed to thwart a major network breach before customers were impacted, reports Bloomberg. Hackers were able to get into edge-routing infrastructure, breaching a router owned and operated by T-Mobile.

T-Mobile was able to detect the suspicious activity, blocking hackers from further accessing its systems. There were apparently attempts at getting deeper into the T-Mobile network, but T-Mobile was able to catch the intrusion early so no customer data was compromised. Bloomberg says that people familiar with the situation have confirmed that T-Mobile knows how its network was breached and the access point has been fixed.

It is not clear when the hack covered in Bloomberg's article took place, nor who perpetrated the attack.

In recent weeks, Chinese state-sponsored hackers breached multiple telecommunications companies to access smartphones owned by U.S. politicians. On November 15, T-Mobile did confirm that its systems were accessed by the Chinese hackers, but said that it had seen no "significant impacts to T-Mobile systems or data" and had "no evidence of impacts to or exfiltration of any customer information."

Back in 2021, T-Mobile suffered a major data breach that saw attackers access data from more than 50 million users. Data obtained included names, phone numbers, addresses, birth dates, Social Security numbers, driver's license and ID info, IMEI numbers, and IMSI numbers, and hackers put it all up for sale.

At the time, T-Mobile pledged to bolster security with a multi-year investment and long-term partnerships with cybersecurity experts at Mandiant.

The 2021 hack ended up costing T-Mobile $60 million after it was fined by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) for failing to prevent or disclose unauthorized access to sensitive customer data.

Article Link: T-Mobile Learns From Past Breaches, Manages to Stop New Attack

 

[contacos]

Well you’d hope they learned from experience!

 

[phenste]

this headline is beyond savage Juli 🤣

 

[Plutonius]

I'm sure there are some successful breaches for each one that is caught for anything that is networked .

 

[Dwalls90]

It’s almost like they expect a reward for “doing better” when this never should have happened the first time.

 

[npmacuser5]

Fifty million not enough pain. Ten times that amount should be the starting point.

 

[coffeemilktea]

I, for one, think we should celebrate the fact that T-Mobile security is capable of doing their job. I'm so proud of them for finally being able to do the literal bare minimum... bravo T-Mobile! 🥳👏

 

[WWP99]

I got ten bucks that says it was Russia. They are not our friends.

 

[swsm]

and we're supposed to be impressed by TM's successful thwarting because????

The bare minimum these companies we are FORCED to provide our personal information to is to protect that information. Big deal, they protected it one time.

 

[swsm]

I, for one, think we should celebrate the fact that T-Mobile security is capable of doing their job. I'm so proud of them for finally being able to do the literal bare minimum... bravo T-Mobile! 🥳👏

 

[swsm]

sure hope you're joking cause it's absurd how many data breaches occur. It's cheaper for these huge companies to cover their butts and apologize after the fact than to secure their networks up front. You most certainly must be an employee!

 

[NewOldStock]

"'In recent weeks, Chinese state-sponsored hackers breached multiple telecommunications companies to access smartphones owned by U.S. politicians. "

I hope they don't service/furnish coverage to the military.

 

[doboy]

Got my info breached from TMo back in the day even after I stopped being their customer for a decade. F this stupid company.

 

[bousozoku]

Thank goodness they're doing a better job of handling attacks. There have been two since we Sprint users were added to their databases.

 

[Gengar]

Shocking that they would be the ones to have successful defense against a breach, but good on them. AT&T and Verizon were just hacked too, and I know they probably weren’t as lucky.

 

[macduke]

Do they want a cookie? This is literally their job. Not that it matters because all of our data is out there anyway.

 

[2128506]

> Hackers were able to get into edge-routing infrastructure, breaching a router owned and operated by T-Mobile.

So they did not learn from past breaches.

 

[polyphenol]

Was it a D-Link DSR-150 family router? One of the ones owners have been told to retire and replace!

D-Link says replace vulnerable routers or risk pwnage

Vendor offers 20% discount on new model, but not patches

www.theregister.com

 

[myhaksown]

So many companies fail to learn from their past breaches. It’s good to see that they got better detection methods. Companies like T-Mobile are so huge that some hardware in use will always have vulnerabilities. This time they caught it early and protected user data and that’s what we want. Yeah it’s their job but AT&T has had multiple breaches if I remember right so every one stopped should be celebrated. Although I agree that it should cost companies far more when a breach occurs. That way it’s cheaper to secure themselves than to pay the fine.