Google Users Personal Data Compromised Becaues of T-Mobile
Google Fi customers have has their phone numbers hijacked due to the latest T-Mobile data breach.
Customers of Google Fi have been affected by a data breach. The company is blaming this issue on the cellular provider it is in partnership with, T-Mobile. T-mobile has recently experienced a string of data breaches where customers personal information has been stolen from known and unknown sources.
The information that was breached includes cellular plan information, sim card numbers, and information about whether the cellular account is active. The compromised data does not include personal information like names, addresses, birth dates, Social Security Numbers, tax information, or any other sensitive information that could be used to cause serious harm. Google has sent out an email to its customers to let them know about what has happened and any action that they need to take.
Google said that Google Fi customers had no interruptions in their service. However, a small number of customers have reported otherwise. Some customers have claimed to have temporarily had their cell phone numbers hijacked.
This is known as SIM Swapping and occurs when an outside party transfers a phone number to another device. Google Fi users reported the loss of phone numbers for up to two-hour periods. Often when this happens, hackers attempt to gain access to social media, bank accounts or other accounts that are protected by a phone number.
Direct T-Mobile customers were not so lucky when it came to the most recent data breach of their system. Close to 40 million T-mobile customers faced theft of sensitive and personal information. Luckily, the data breach for GoogleFi wasn’t a case where sensitive information was stolen, or operations were shut down on a long-term basis.
Private information, including but not limited to names, birthdates, Social Security Numbers, and financial information, has been stolen from T-Mobile customers. Customers of the major cell phone carrier have not taken this issue lightly either. The mobile company has had to pay several million dollars in damages to customers due to the constant cyber attacks and theft of customers’ personal and private information.
The latest incident at Google is most likely in relation to the recent hack that T-Mobile is facing and trying to clean up. Moving forward, Google may want to reconsider T-Mobile as a network partner. Due to the unusually high number of hacks T-Mobile has faced, partnership or being a direct customer of the company is proving to be risky business.
Significant data and account breaches at Google are rare. T-Mobile has faced countless hacks from outside parties despite the company claiming to have security as a priority. One incident occurred in 2018, and another in 2013.
Google spends large amounts of money regularly seeking out and fixing security issues within its systems. This shows in the small number of security breaches that have occurred. The case is different for T-Mobile and its systems.
T-Mobile has recently reported a large financial investment to up its security game. The results, however, have proven worthless as the company continues to face repeated hacks and theft. The trend is alarming and currently being investigated by outside parties and various organizations.
