Perhaps Experian — one of the nation’s “big three” credit rating agencies — is about to get a lot more sympathetic to any consumers whose credit got a little muffed up by the malicious intervention of data thieves. As they, too, have now been the victims of cybercriminals.
Experian confirmed in a blog post last night (Oct. 1) that the data from 15 million T-Mobile customers (or those who were applying to become customers) was plucked from its servers by hackers.
Oops.
“On Sept. 15, 2015, Experian discovered an unauthorized party accessed T-Mobile data housed in an Experian server,” the firm wrote. “Experian’s consumer credit database was not accessed in this incident, and no payment card or banking information was obtained.”
And while the lack of payments data accessed is good news, the blog post also confirms the data the thieves made off with, which includes “records containing a name, address, Social Security number, date of birth, identification number (typically a driver’s license, military ID or passport number) and additional information used in T-Mobile’s own credit assessment were accessed,” according to Experian.
In one of the least surprising reactions in recent memory, T-Mobile CEO John Legere is not incredibly pleased with the situation.
“Obviously, I am incredibly angry about this data breach, and we will institute a thorough review of our relationship with Experian, but right now my top concern and first focus is assisting any and all consumers affected,” he wrote in a letter to consumers on Thursday.
As of yet, the data has not been used, and Experian is in the process of notifying customers about the breach and enrolling them in their two complementary years of credit monitoring services. T-Mobile is offering a similar service to consumers.
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