Experian and T-Mobile Provide FAQ and Resources for Consumers in Wake of Hack

Experian discovered a security breach on one if its data servers mid-September, affecting and estimated 15 million of consumers.  The breach impacts anyone who applied for T-Mobile USA postpaid services between September 1, 2013 and September 16, 2015. Consumers name, address, social security number, date of birth, identification number (such as a passport or driver's license number), and additional information used in T-Mobile's credit evaluation were accessed.  T-Mobile is required to maintain credit evaluation information 24 months after a decision has been made according to consumer credit regulation. The credit evaluation information resided on an Experian server and was encrypted, but there is reason to believe the encryption has been compromised.

According to a statement on T-Mobile's website, "Experian has taken full responsibility for the theft of data from its server," and Experian is reporting that it is working with both federal and international law agencies. The companies have recently posted answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) and resources for those who may have been impacted:

• Experian FAQ
• T-Mobile FAQ
• T-Mobile Resources for Consumers

While Experian seems to be taking responsibility for the hack, interestingly, the URL path for the Experian's includes "data-breach/t-mobilefacts" while the T-Mobile  includes "experian-data-breach." The URL path is used for search-engine optimization (SEO) and can create confusion as search engines such as Google and Google News pick up the story from Experian's website.

Source: T-Mobile and Experian