Last August, T-Mobile confirmed it had fallen sufferer to a hack that noticed the non-public knowledge of greater than 54 million of its prospects compromised. In the aftermath of that incident, the provider introduced a multi-year partnership with cybersecurity agency Mandiant. At the time, T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert stated the agency, alongside accounting company KPMG, would assist the provider audit its safety practices and implement insurance policies that may assist it stop future cybersecurity incidents.
Newly unsealed court docket paperwork (PDF link) filed by the Department of Justice counsel the provider might have additionally employed a third-party agency to stop the info leaked within the hack from circulating extra broadly. First noticed by Motherboard, the paperwork element felony fees towards Diogo Santos Coelho, the alleged founder and administrator of RaidForums. Before it was taken down by the Justice Department, the web site was a spot the place hackers got here to purchase and promote stolen knowledge, together with it could appear the non-public info of T-Mobile’s prospects.
The paperwork element an incident involving a person who glided by the alias “SubVirt.” At some level on or round August eleventh, 2021, they posted to RaidForums to attempt to promote a trove of not too long ago hacked knowledge. The Justice Department doesn’t explicitly identify a sufferer, as an alternative referring to them merely as “Company 3,” however notes a later publish “confirmed the data belonged to a major telecommunications company and wireless operator provides services in the United States.”
According to the company, Company 3 “hired a third-party to purchase exclusive access to the database to prevent it being sold to criminals.” An worker posed as a possible purchaser and paid roughly $50,000 in Bitcoin to acquire a pattern of the info. They then paid a further $150,000 for your entire database with the understanding that SubVirt would delete their copy. Unfortunately for Company 3, SubVirt and their collaborators didn’t honor the settlement. The Justice Department notes “it appears the co-conspirators continued to attempt to sell the databases after the third-party’s purchase.”
Based on info within the court docket paperwork and the timeline of the incident, Motherboard, which first reported the information of the info breach in 2021, suggests T-Mobile is the unnamed provider alluded to by the Justice Department. We’ve reached out to the corporate and Mandiant for remark.
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