Jan 20 (Reuters) – T-Mobile (TMUS.O)US No. 3 wireless carrier said by subscribers Thursday that it is investigating a data breach involving 37 million postpaid and prepaid accounts, and that it could incur significant costs related to the incident.
The company, which has more than 110 million subscribers, said it identified malicious activity on January 5 and contained it within a day, adding that no sensitive data such as financial information was compromised.
However, some basic customer data — such as name, billing address, email, and phone number — was obtained and has begun notifying affected customers, according to T-Mobile.
“Our investigation is still ongoing, but it appears that the malicious activity has been fully contained at this time, and there is currently no evidence that the bad actor was able to compromise or compromise our systems or network,” the company said.
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has opened an investigation into the data breach, The Wall Street Journal reports mentioned on Thursday, citing an FCC spokesperson.
The FCC and T-Mobile did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment on the reported investigation.
“While these cybersecurity breaches may not be systemic in nature, their frequency at T-Mobile is an alarming anomaly for telecom peers,” said Neil Mack, senior analyst at Moody’s Investors Service.
“This could negatively affect customer behavior, cause spikes and potentially attract scrutiny from the FCC and other regulators.”
Last year, T-Mobile agreed to pay $350 million and spend an additional $150 million to upgrade data security to settle litigation over a 2021 cyberattack that compromised information belonging to an estimated 76.6 million people.
Shares of the Bellevue, Washington-based company were down 2% in after-hours trading.
Additional reporting by Eva Matthews and Lavanya Ahir in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kaluvella, Magu Samuel, Rashmi Aish and Savio de Souza
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