This week, T-Mobile agreed to pay $350 million to settle litigation brought over an August 2021 cyberattack in which a hacker siphoned private information belonging to an estimated 76.6 million people.
According to an SEC filing Friday afternoon, the company also promised to make an additional $150 million investment in data security and related technologies this year and next. The $350 million payout will fund claims by class members, the legal fees of plaintiffs’ counsel, and the costs of administering the settlement.
If the court approves the settlement, it “will resolve substantially all of the claims brought by the Company’s current, former and prospective customers who were impacted by the 2021 cyberattack,” T-Mobile said in its SEC filing.
The Bellevue, Wash.-based wireless carrier will continue to cooperate with various regulators who are separately investigating the incident, according to a T-Mobile spokesperson.
“As we continue to invest time, energy, and resources in addressing this challenge, we are pleased to have resolved this consumer class action filing,” T-Mobile issued a statement Friday regarding the settlement on its website.
According to the SEC filing, T-Mobile expects to record a pre-tax charge of about $400 million in the second quarter as a result of the settlement. The filing notes that the charge and the $150 million investment in security were anticipated in its prior financial guidance to investors.
Last year in August, T-Mobile announced a data breach after a hacking organization infiltrated its computer systems to steal sensitive data relating to millions of customers, and sold some of the information on the dark web.
The motherboard was given access to some of the data, and the publication confirmed that it contained correct details on T-Mobile subscribers. The seller told Motherboard that they had infiltrated multiple T-Mobile servers. A subset of the data, containing around 30 million social security numbers and driver's licenses, is being sold on the forum for six bitcoins, while the rest is being sold privately.
T-Mobile is the brand name for the mobile communications companies of Deutsche Telekom AG, a German telecommunications firm. In the Czech Republic (T-Mobile Czech Republic), the Netherlands (T-Mobile Netherlands), Poland (T-Mobile Polska), and the United States (T-Mobile US).
