T-Mobile and MetroPCS users got their personal data hacked, and there isn't much to be done
T-Mobile got to the airwaves to announce that on Monday, August 20th, the company had to deal with a hacking attack from abroad that left personal details of about 2 million customers in a vulnerable state.
We wanted you to be aware of this situation. If you have questions, please call Customer Care at your convenience. If you are a Metro PCS customer, just dial 611 from your mobile phone. If you are a T-Mobile customer, you can dial 611, use two-way messaging on MyT-Mobile.com, the T-Mobile App, or iMessage through Apple Business Chat. You can also request a call back or schedule a time for your Team of Experts to call you through both the T-Mobile App and MyT-Mobile.com. As a reminder, it’s always a good idea to regularly change account passwords.
Fret not, though, as your more sensitive (and more secured) info like Social Security numbers, account passwords, or any financial details, were not accessed. The compromised data, however, listed customers' names, the associated billing zip codes, and phone numbers, email addresses, account types and numbers, and so on - still pretty unpleasant to have to deal with.
In T-Mobile's statement about the hack, the carrier clarifies that those who were affected are being promptly notified with a text, like the one you see here. Although no hard numbers on the number of compromised users are given in the statement, T-Mobile answered an info request saying that less than 3% of its 77 million customers have been affected, or roughly 2 million people.
If you never got a text like this one, you needn't worry but can contact T-Mobile on its 611 service number, just in case, not that you will have many useful options to react post factum:
I got a notification. What do I need to do?
We wanted you to be aware of this situation. If you have questions, please call Customer Care at your convenience. If you are a Metro PCS customer, just dial 611 from your mobile phone. If you are a T-Mobile customer, you can dial 611, use two-way messaging on MyT-Mobile.com, the T-Mobile App, or iMessage through Apple Business Chat. You can also request a call back or schedule a time for your Team of Experts to call you through both the T-Mobile App and MyT-Mobile.com. As a reminder, it’s always a good idea to regularly change account passwords.
source: T-Mobile & Motherboard
Things that are NOT allowed: