Tmobile breach6/13/2023 SIM swapping attacks have gained popularity with attackers in recent years because it allows them to bypass security systems that rely on one-time use codes sent over SMS or communicated via a phone call by automated systems. Switching a phone number to a different SIM card is a legitimate service that mobile operators use when a subscriber's device is lost or stolen or when their existing SIM card stops working or needs to be upgraded or changed for technical reasons. This is when an attacker manages to convince a mobile operator to associate a victim's phone number with a SIM card under their control to receive all their phone calls and text messages. The more breaches occur, the easier it is for attackers to build complete victim profiles and launch attacks that are increasingly hard to detect by both companies and users.Īnother type of attack that is specific to phone users is SIM swapping. ![]() For the 850,000 prepaid customers who had their names, phone numbers, and PINs exposed, attackers could use data from past breaches to complete profiles that were missing phone numbers, for example. However, many leaked data sets on the internet from numerous other breaches include phone numbers, and attackers could potentially cross reference the data from the T-Mobile breach to previously leaked data to discover the phone numbers for at least a subset of the affected individuals, since people don't change their phone numbers often. At first glance, in the case of the 48 million current, former, and prospective T-Mobile customers whose personal details were exposed, attackers can't target them directly with SMS phishing because their phone numbers were not exposed. In the case of mobile communications, such phishing attacks could be launched over SMS messages, impersonating the mobile operator. In the past, attackers have used data leaked from a breach to impersonate the same company where the breach occurred, sometimes even using the breach itself to get users to perform actions that exposed additional information or led to malware infections. One common threat after any data breach is phishing, a form of social engineering where attackers use the stolen private information to construct believable messages impersonating companies or brands. If an attacker is in possession of a user's personal information, phone number, and PIN, they can call customer support and potentially impersonate the account owner to make modifications on their accounts enabling various attacks. It is mandatory for all accounts and is between six and 15 digits long. The account PIN is important security information that T-Mobile's customer support representatives use to authenticate account holders during customer care calls. However, names, phone numbers, and account PINs were exposed for 850,000 active T-Mobile prepaid customers. No phone numbers, account numbers, PINs, passwords, or financial information were exposed for these users. ![]() On Wednesday, the mobile operator revealed that the compromised data included full names, dates of birth, SSNs and driver’s license/ID information for 7.8 million current T-Mobile postpaid customers as well as over 40 million former or prospective customers who had applied for credit with T-Mobile. On Monday, T-Mobile confirmed that it investigated the claims and found evidence of unauthorized access to some of the company's data, but did not specify what type of data was impacted. On Sunday, Motherboard reported that hackers were advertising for sale a data dump that they claimed contained the Social Security numbers (SSNs), phone numbers, names, physical addresses, International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers, and driver's license information for 100 million T-Mobile subscribers. These include SMS/text-based phishing, SIM swapping and unauthorized number porting. Victims of the T-Mobile or any other breach where personal data is stolen should be aware of follow-on attacks and take steps to mitigate them. The exposed details differed across different types of customers, so the level of risk users are exposed to varies. T-Mobile has confirmed a data breach that impacted nearly 50 million people, including current, former and prospective subscribers.
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