This past week, T-Mobile has released information regarding its customers security. It has been estimated that close to two million people’s personal information has been leaked due to a recent hack. This is a very serious issue, now especially, considering how much vital information people have linked to their phones. This includes credit card numbers, zip codes, social security numbers, account passwords and other information that if gotten into the hands of the wrong person, could be devastating. The cybersecurity unit of T-Mobile immediately shut off all access to any of the possible mobile devices and reported the incident to law enforcement.
T-Mobile representatives released a statement saying that all the passwords that have been collected by the hackers were encrypted and were not able to be used. Regardless, T-Mobile was also accused of using an MD5 algorithm to secure the customers passwords which was claimed to be no longer safe and effective by the author himself. The hackers were not specifically identified as of right now, however T-Mobile and other companies have suggested the hackers were international and continue to search for the people who breached the system.
Hopefully, no customers serious information has been compromised or been used to cause serious harm. This incident should be a learning experience for T-Mobile considering the magnitude of customers it provides service to. It is scary to think that such a wide-spread and reputable company had its security system breached by unknown hackers that took advantage of millions of people. T-Mobile should be working vigorously to tighten its security and make sure that its customers do not have to experience anything like this again.
https://www.cnet.com/news/t-mobile-hack-may-have-exposed-2-million-customers-data/
I think situations like these are horrible and as a computer science major, it really makes me question what is safe and what isn’t in our daily life. People trust these companies with our personal information and assume that they are making the best decisions possible it safe but it seems like more often than not lately we have been seeing big breaches of our data. As a computer science major I realize the fact that even if you have the best of the best working on encrypting people’s most private data there is always someone out in the world that is just as smart and just as technical as that other person but instead will choose to use that knowledge and ability to steal that kind of data.
This situation seems like it is another one of those hacking incidents where the employees should have been doing something to prevent this situation since they knew it was not safe. The Equifax hack from last year is just like this one where it could have been prevented but no one tried to prevent it. Even though data security should have the brightest minds in the field it seems like they fail at protecting everything. I do not think there is a direct solution to these sort of situations other than having trained professionals go through and look through all of their data security practices to make sure that they are the best they can be. Better practices need to be implemented for the future of safeguarding vital and sensitive data. For this to happen we also need to see larger legal battles against these companies, they should not get off free for losing massive amounts of personal data that they say is protected.
[https://www.wired.com/story/equifax-breach-no-excuse/]
Problems like this are very serious because like you said if this information gets into the wrong hands it could ruin people’s lives. What really worried me about this article was the credit cards. I find it astounding how much we as a society rely on the validity of your credit score. Although it may be a good measure of how well you can pay your bills on time, employers can still ask for these reports to determine how trustworthy or responsibly you are. For a company that is worth so much money you would think that they would have been able to create a security system that wouldn’t allow hackers to get into the system so easily.
This is very disturbing. Just think about everything we use cellphones for nowadays. The technology we have in the palm of our hands can be very helpful, but also harmful. If a company as successful as T-Mobile was hacked, smaller companies are easily at risk also. Hackers could get a hold of your credit card information, social security number, passwords, account numbers, and more. I have also read that certain companies such as facebook have been guilty of spreading an individual’s personal information for profit. Facebook may know a lot more about you than what you are aware of. Facebook knows your age, workplace, school, phone number, email, who you associate with, what adds you click on, and what you look at most. They use this information to make money off of advertisements and app creators. To learn more about what facebook knows about you, check out this website!
https://thevpn.guru/how-facebook-uses-private-data/
This is very concerning because if a company as well known as T-Mobile can get hacked, it possible other smaller companies can get hacked. I think a lot of the blame should fall on T-Mobile, like you mentioned, they were using an out of date algorithm to secure the customers passwords, which was known to have flaws in itself. Although only some customer information got hacked, it could of been worse if credit card numbers were released, similar to like the Equifax hack that happened at the end of last year.
You can read more about that here:
https://money.cnn.com/2017/09/07/technology/business/equifax-data-breach/index.html
Hopefully all companies including T-Mobile learn from this breach and up their cyber security. We all have very crucial information that we use on the internet. Companies need to show the customers that we are their number one priority.
I completely agree with you in the fact that this is a very serious issue that companies need to learn from. People store very important pieces of information on their phones, and it is scary to not be able to trust your cell phone carriers to protect your private information. Something that is interesting to note is that a lot of major companies are getting hacked in just 2018 alone. For example, according to Fox Business, Panera Bread, Under Armour, eBay, Uber, Forever 21, and many more have faced issues in terms of leaking their customers’ information. These are very major companies, and I was interested in learning why large companies get hacked. Although according to CNBC there are many ways a company can get hacked, I believe the scariest and most interesting way a company could get hacked is by scanning companies’ networks for any security vulnerabilities. If hackers are able to identify a vulnerability in a network, they could send a command that allows them to take any data from their network. This is a prime example as to how important it is to have a skilled tech team on hand making sure that their networks are up to date and secure. Companies like T-Moble should be aware when algorithms are no longer effective and make it a priority to update them when need be. Overall, securing people’s private information is extremely important. If people cannot trust your company to protect their data, then your company will most likely not be very successful in keeping and procuring new customers in the future.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/a-list-of-the-biggest-data-leaks-over-the-last-six-months
https://www.cnbc.com/2012/07/06/10-Ways-Companies-Get-Hacked.html?slide=5
I agree it is very scary to think that a well known cell phone company such as T-Moblie has been breached, leaking millions of people’s information. Internet hackers have become very savvy and are able to break into many companies data base in order to get the information they want. Serious information is given out when you are paying for a cell phone company and would be very dangerous for people’s identity if any of the information was taken by the hackers.
I also read in the article that the company told their customers via text or call that this occurred, which I feel is super important. It is better for a company to be honest with their customers rather than lie and have their users be mad and ultimately leave their service.
It is not just a learning experience for T-Moblie, but for other cell phone companies as well. This making them on high alert that hackers are willing to attack such a popular data base company. This should make cell phone providers like Verizon, or Sprint build a better security wall and be prepared for anything. I hope that no information of customers were taken and that T-Moblie is taking the right precautions.
Article:
https://www.cnet.com/news/t-mobile-hack-may-have-exposed-2-million-customers-data/