Experian loses data again, 15 million T-Mobile customers in danger
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More hacks to deal with, this time from a credit bureau.
It's a good time to be in the identity theft business.
I'm Bridget Carey, this is your CNet update.
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Hackers have stolen personal information of 15 million T Mobile customers and that includes anyone who just applied to sign up for T Mobile's service between September 2013 and this year.
It's not T-Mobile that's to blame here, the hackers got the data by breaking into Experian, a major credit bureau that T-Mobile uses to conduct credit checks for customers.
Needless to say, T-Mobile's CEO, John Ledger is angry with Experian and he said so in a blog post.
The hackers made off with a treasure trove of personal info to conduct identity theft.
They have names, addresses, birthdays, social security numbers And even driver's license and passport numbers.
This isn't the first time Experian has been in hot water for not keeping your data safe.
In 2013, it was uncovered that Experian sold personal data to criminals.
A group of ID thieves and fraudsters in Vietnam.
If you can't trust the major credit bureau to keep data safe, then maybe they shouldn't be one of the three bureaus entrusted with this sensitive info.
To make up for the T-Mobile hack, Experian is offering free credit monitoring and ID protection.
But you need to give them more information about yourself.
It's insanity.
15 is a hot number in hacking this week.
We go from 15 million T-Mobile customers to 15 gigabytes of personal user data stolen from the crowd funding website, Patreon.
The website is a place where you can be a patron, and donate a few bucks a month, to people who create things you enjoy.
Such as artists, video editors, and pod casters.
And some are offering gifts as incentive for you to donate more money.
Patreon announced the hack in a blog post, saying that the breach involved names, emails, and some shipping and billing addresses.
No credit card numbers were compromised.
The data that was stolen has been dumped on line to various sites.
And so far about 2.3 million unique emails have been discovered in that data dump.
As with any hack, it's good to change your password as an extra precaution.
But that's not all, a bad Android bug is back in the news.
It's called Stagefright 2.0 and essentially, it deals with a weak spot in the Android operating system.
A hacker can steal data from your phone If you visit the wrong website.
It involves sneaking bad code into a music or movie file.
And if that file is on a website and your phone previews it to play it, you're infected.
We first heard about this flaw in April, but the security group Zimperium found the problem is broader than originally thought.
Every Android device is at risk of this glitch.
But patching can be a problem.
Not every Android phone gets a software update, and when they do, it can take a long time.
Google has said it will issue a patch to Nexus users on Monday.
That's it for this tech news update, and for more, head to cnet.com, and stay safe out there folks.
From our studios in New York, I'm Bridget Carey.
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