T-Mobile Agrees to $500M Settlement in Massive Data Breach
The breach affected more than 76 million people, the carrier says.
T-Mobile has agreed to settle a class action lawsuit filed by customers over a data breach revealed last year that exposed highly sensitive personal information belonging to an estimated 76.6 million people.
The wireless carrier said in a court filing Friday it will pay $350 million to settle the customers' claims and an additional $150 million to upgrade its data protection. The breach, disclosed in August, exposed information such as customer names, Social Security numbers, phone numbers, addresses and dates of birth.
The settlement proposal, which was filed in federal court in Kansas City, Missouri, still requires a judge's approval. In the filing, T-Mobile said the proposal wasn't an acknowledgement of wrongdoing.
The breach is one of at least four to hit the wireless carrier since 2015. It came to light after a user on an underground forum claimed to be selling the personal data of more than 100 million people swiped from T-Mobile's servers.
"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 said in a statement posted to its website.