If you are one of the nearly 77 million people affected by breached T-Mobile last year, you can have a few dollars your way. The company just announced the terms of its settlement in a class-action merger, and it’s not cheap: $350 million is split between customers (and attorneys), plus $150 million “for data security.” materials and related technology”. Let this be a lesson to all companies: If you’re always ready, you don’t have to spend $150 million to get ready!
This breach appears to have happened early last year, after which T-Mobile’s collection of customer data was put up for sale on various criminal forums. Estimates of the number of people affected vary widely, with T-Mobile claiming less than a million people have their accounts and PINs completely exposed (still not large) and somewhere between 40 and 100 million in total. user with some data retrieved.
The settlement, described in a Filing with the SEC and filing a petition to court (PDF) First Discovered by Geekwire, there doesn’t appear to be a separate provision for those affected differently by the attack – but that may have been handled separately for all we know. Currently, the group is identified by the settlement document as “approximately 76.6 million US residents identified by T-Mobile with information compromised in the Data Breach”, with a bit of additional legality. for Californians, where class action lawsuits are handled a little differently.
As is often the case in these massive lawsuits, the attorneys suffer massive damages and then the company has to notify class members that they are owed money, so you can expect a postcard. if you are a T-Mobile customer in August 2021 (benefits full disclosure, I was). The amount is then divided, depending on the number of respondents and the amount the lawyer takes. Final settlement terms could be approved as early as December.
Chances are you won’t be able to cover a monthly mobile bill with what you get, but these days a $9 check can be the difference between “dinner” and “no dinner” for to quite a few people, so let’s not make fun of these small sums – except that it’s a bit insulting there are five serious violation In how many years and all the customer gets is enough to order off the value menu.
Company, which merged with Sprint right before the breach, in a filing with the SEC it said it would spend $150 million to improve its security, so maybe they’re taking things seriously now. Guess we’ll find out soon.
