Over the weekend, Mint Mobile went into details to discuss the data breach that it recently discovered. The T-Mobile MVNO revealed that an unauthorized individual was able to access the account information of their subscribers and ported these phone numbers to another carrier.
The MVNO sent out an email to affected subscribers explaining what they went through. The email shared that an individual was able to port a small number of subscribers to another network without their authorization between the dates of June 8 and 10.
Apart from being able to port these numbers, the individual was able to access the personal information of Mint Mobile subscribers, such as their names, addresses, emails, passwords, and call history.
“Between June 8, 2021 and June 10, 2021, a very small number of Mint Mobile subscribers’ phone numbers, including yours, were temporarily ported to another carrier without permission. While we immediately took steps to reverse the process and restore your service, an unauthorized individual potentially gained access to some of your information, which may have included your name, address, telephone number, email address, password, bill amount, international call detail information, telephone number, account number, and subscription features.”
The MVNO did not go into detail about how the hacker was able to access the information of its subscribers. But it’s possible that they were able to use a compromised Mint Mobile app that was being used to manage customers.
With the threat, Mint Mobile suggests affected customers to change the password on their accounts. They have also sent out a warning to affected users to “protect other accounts that use your phone number for validation purposes and to reset account passwords.” This is because it’s possible that the hackers were able to use the ported number to gain access to 2-factor authentication codes and lead to further attacks.
