T-Mobile has agreed to pay $350 million over class action claims related to a cyberattack that occurred in 2021. The cyberattack impacted roughly 80 million US residents, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC explained that the money will be used to fund claims submitted by class members, as well as legal fees for plaintiffs’ counsel. The mobile carrier has also pledged to pour an additional $150 million into data and security technology between 2022 and 2023 to protect against the possibility of a future attack. The settlement does not contain any admission of liability or wrongdoing on behalf of T-Mobile.
The data breach was first disclosed last August, and experts criticized the company for failing to discover the breach itself. The breach was only identified once the hacker was observed selling customer data online. Therefore, T-Mobile was not able to detect the unauthorized access nor take any action while the cyberattack was active. In addition, the breach impacted millions of customers and violated user privacy.
