US carrier T-Mobile has promised to pay $350 million to fund claims, legal fees and administration costs following the gargantuan data breach of 2021.
The company also said in a Filing with the SEC (opens in a new tab) that it would shell out $150 million for “data security and related technologies” over the next two years.
However, T-Mobile argued that the settlement “contains no admission of liability, wrongdoing or liability by any of the defendants.”
What really happened?
T-Mobile says the breach affected 76.6 million people and involved the loss of data from customers’ first and last names, social security numbers and driver’s license information.
The incident was blamed on a ‘sophisticated cyberattack’ and T-Mobile customer data subsequently appeared for sale on the dark web, according to a report by Motherboard (opens in a new tab)who said a hacker got the information by breaking into the telecommunications company’s servers.
The settlement still needs court approval, which is expected as early as December 2022.
While the settlement amount for T-Mobile, which reported $58.4 billion in revenue for the year 2021, is pretty jaw-dropping, it still sits somewhat in the middle of the list of top breach payments. of data; Equifax paid $575 million following its widely publicized 2017 incident, while Home Depot paid $200 million following its 2014 breach.
A recent Splunk study found that nearly half (49%) of businesses have experienced a data breach in the past two years.
- Want to prevent your business from making a massive payment? Check out our guide to the best identity theft protection.
Going through The edge (opens in a new tab)
