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2021 August

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Data Breach Alert: T-Mobile 100 Million Impacted

Data Breach Alert: T-Mobile 100 Million Impacted

The Associated Press reported yesterday that communications giant T-Mobile confirmed there was unauthorized access to ‘some T-Mobile data’ but that the company is still determining the scope of the breach and who was affected. T-Mobile is actively investigating the leak after someone took to an online underground forum offering to sell personal information from more than 100 million cellphone users.

 

According to Vice’s Motherboard report, the data came from T-Mobile servers and “includes social security numbers, phone numbers, names, physical addresses, unique IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) numbers, and driver license information.” Motherboard also reported that they had seen samples of the data, and confirmed they contained accurate information on T-Mobile customers.

 

The seller on the underground forum was asking for 6 bitcoin, which is about $270,000, for a subset of the data containing 30 million social security numbers and driver licenses. The hacker said that they are privately selling the rest of the data at the moment. For more in-depth details about the hack, you can read the KrebsonSecurity article HERE.

 

A statement on the T-Mobile website reads “We are confident that the entry point used to gain access has been closed, and we are continuing our deep technical review of the situation across our systems to identify the nature of any data that was illegally accessed. This investigation will take some time but we are working with the highest degree of urgency.” The statement also included that the company takes the protection of their customers very seriously and that T-Mobile is “conducting an extensive analysis alongside with forensic experts to understand the validity of these claims, and are coordinating with law enforcement.”

 

If you or a family member has been a T-Mobile customer and suspect your data has been compromised, please contact us as soon as possible. We are always available for you 24/7/365 at 888.966.GUARD (4827). Our Member Services can also be emailed at [email protected].

 

Photo credit: John Tuesday on unsplash.com

University of California and StreetEasy: Dark Web Fraud Alert

University of California and StreetEasy: Dark Web Fraud Alert

Our teams have discovered extremely large sets of compromised data on the Dark Web. The latest two websites involved are University of California and StreetEasy.com.

 

The University of California (UC) is the world’s leading public research university system. Like several hundred other institutions throughout the country, including universities, government institutions and private companies, UC has been using a vendor service called Accellion File Transfer Appliance (FTA) to transfer information. Accellion was the target of an international cyberattack where the perpetrators exploited a vulnerability in Accellion’s program and attacked roughly 100 organizations. The attackers are now attempting to get money from organizations and individuals.

 

The breach origination date was March 31, 2021. Information stolen includes names, addresses, SSNs, as well as some email addresses and medical IDs.

 

StreetEasy.com is New York City’s leading local real estate marketplace on mobile and the Web, providing comprehensive listings and market data. The approximate breach size is 990,290 and originated in June of 2016. Data exposed includes passwords, first and last names, email addresses, and user IDs.

 

Be vigilant. Be strong. Stay in the know. If you have visited these websites in the past or have done business with them, please contact our Member Services immediately. We are always available for you 24/7/365 at 888.966.GUARD (4827).

 

Photo credit by Erfan Parhizi via unsplash.com.

How to Spot a Hacker Going After Your Business

How to Spot a Hacker Going After Your Business

When you think of a “bad guy,” what comes to mind? Someone sitting alone hunched over a keyboard in a dark hoody in a dark basement with fast typing fingers and maybe sporting a three-day-old beard? And what do you picture this anti-social “bad guy” doing? Are they only going after huge corporations and corrupt politicians? Nope! But that is what pop society has been assuming cybercrime is and that the everyday individual or smaller organizations aren’t being targeted.

 

The reality is that many of the faces of modern cybercrime don’t look like what we have read in fictional books and seen on tv and in the movies. These cybercriminals are much harder to spot because “they look a lot like legitimate businesses than you might expect,” Hubspot reported. “The work they might do day-to-day to steal personal information and disrupt businesses is pretty boring.”

 

So why do they hack? Money! Cybercrime has cost the world just under a trillion dollars in 2020.

 

The fact is that your Personal Identifying Information (PPI) is just like a currency. When stolen and aggregated, PPI can be sold for a hefty profit and “it’s a lot easier to try to get into your business’s data than to try to gather their own to sell.” Many websites sell aggregated collections of email addresses and passwords that have been gathered from past data breaches. From there, all it takes is a bit of unsophisticated scripting to use these emails and passwords to try to log into different websites across the internet.

 

“These folks aren’t looking to hit the biggest, most valuable businesses. It’s a case of quantity over quality.” These villains take a few thousand emails and passwords and see how many of them work out against high value services (such as email providers or CRMs) to see what data can be pulled out of those accounts to sell or how they can use those accounts for phishing emails or ransomware.

 

Look at the statement released by Darkside, the group whose ransomware attack brought down the Colonial Oil Pipeline and caused gas prices to spike in May this year. They released: “We are apolitical, we do not participate in geopolitics, do not need to tie use with a defined government and look for other motives. Our goal is to make money and not creating problems for society.” They want cash flow not world domination.

 

Hubspot reported in a blog last month written by Ryan DiPetta, “A lot of hackers look and behave like legitimate businesses, even if they do illegitimate things. Maybe they work a regular nine to five schedule. Maybe they take vacations with their kids. They’re trying to build a business just like you, too … but their business is built on theft and exploitation of your business and the data and trust of your customers.”

 

Are you and your employees protected? For more information on how to protect your company’s bottom line and employees by providing this must-have voluntary benefit, please click HERE.

 

Our team at Guard Well Identity Theft Solutions is available 24/7/365. Contact us at 888.966.GUARD (4827) or email [email protected] if you suspect fraud or have any concerns. We are here to help!

 

Photo credit: Markus Spiske via Unsplash.com