T-Mobile will pay FCC millions in settlement over multiple data breaches

T-Mobile will also invest significant money in beefing up cybersecurity

News By Sead Fadilpašić published 1 October 2024

T-Mobile has settled its case with the US Federal Communications Commission regarding multiple cybersecurity incidents and data breaches between 2021 and 2023.

Under the settlement, the company will pay a multi-million dollar penalty, and will have to significantly revamp its cybersecurity infrastructure.

The FCC said its investigation determined the cyberattacks T-Mobile experienced resulted in data breaches, “which affected millions of cell phone customers, were varied in their nature, exploitations, and apparent methods of attack.” As a result, the company will have to pay a $15.75 million civil penalty to the US Treasury.

Critical step

As part of the ruling, T-Mobile will have to make significant changes to its cybersecurity infrastructure, including moving to a zero-trust network architecture (ZTNA), which the FCC describes as, “one of the most important changes organizations can make to improve their security posture.”

The company's CISO will also have to regularly brief the board regarding T-Mobile’s cybersecurity posture and business risks, and it must also broadly adopt robust identity and access management, which includes multi-factor authentication (MFA) wherever possible.

For the FCC, this is a “critical step in securing critical infrastructure”.

To address these issues, and make the necessary changes, T-Mobile will invest roughly $15.75 million, the announcement adds.

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