T-Mobile, one of the biggest telecommunications companies in the US, was hacked nearly two weeks ago[1], exposing the sensitive information of more than 50 million current, former and prospective customers.
Names, addresses, social security numbers, driver's licenses and ID information for about 48 million people were accessed in the hack, which initially came to light on August 16.
Here's everything we know so far.
What is T-Mobile?
T-Mobile is a subsidiary of German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom AG providing wireless voice, messaging and data services to customers in dozens of countries.
In the US, the company has more than 104 million customers[2] and became the second largest telecommunications company behind Verizon after its $26 billion merger with Sprint[3] in 2018.
How many people are affected by the hack?
T-Mobile released a statement last week[4] confirming that the names, dates of birth, social security numbers, driver's licenses, phone numbers, as well as IMEI and IMSI information for about 7.8 million customers had been stolen in the breach.
Another 40 million former or prospective customers had their names, dates of birth, social security numbers and driver's licenses leaked.
More than 5 million "current postpaid customer accounts" also had information like names, addresses, date of births, phone numbers, IMEIs and IMSIs illegally accessed.
T-Mobile said another 667,000 accounts of former T- Mobile customers had their information stolen alongside a group of 850,000 active T-Mobile prepaid customers, whose names, phone numbers and account PINs were exposed.
The names of 52,000 people with Metro by T-Mobile accounts may also have been accessed, according to T-Mobile.
Who attacked T-Mobile?
A 21-year-old US citizen by the name of John Binns told The Wall Street Journal[5] and Alon Gal[6], co-founder of cybercrime