KING COUNTY, Wash. – T-Mobile is under fire in connection with a massive data breach that exposed personal information of more than 2-million people in Washington, according to a release by Washington Attorney General (AG) Bob Ferguson.
The AG’s office said it filed a consumer protection lawsuit Monday, January 6 in King County Superior Court that asserts T-Mobile knew for years about certain cybersecurity vulnerabilities and did not do enough to address them, a violation of Washington’s Consumer Protection Act.
Ferguson also accused the Bellevue based wireless network operator of misrepresenting to consumers that the company prioritizes protecting the personal data it collects.
“This significant data breach was entirely avoidable,” Ferguson said. “T-Mobile had years to fix key vulnerabilities in its cybersecurity systems — and it failed.”
Ferguson said in the release that T-Mobile discovered more than four years ago that a hacker had gained access to the company’s internal network and exposed personal information of more than 79 million consumers nationwide, among them 2,025,634 Washingtonians.
Of those, 183,406 Washington consumers had their Social Security numbers compromised, Ferguson added.
Ferguson’s lawsuit seeks civil penalties and restitution and injunctive relief to require improvements to T-Mobile’s cybersecurity policies and procedures, as well as increased transparency in communications about cybersecurity to its customers.
For more information about data breaches, data breach reports and protecting your private data, visit the Attorney General’s Data Breach Resource Center: atg.wa.gov/data-breach-resource-center.
