By Lily Hay Newman
On Thursday, T-Mobile confirmed that some of its customer data was breached in an attack the company discovered on Monday. It's a snappy disclosure timeframe, and the carrier said that no financial data or Social Security numbers were compromised in the breach. A relief, right? The problem is the customer data that was potentially exposed: name, billing zip code, email address, some hashed passwords, account number, account type, and phone number. Pay close attention to that last one.
The cumulative danger of all of these data points becoming exposed - not just by T-Mobile but across countless breaches - is that it makes it easier for attackers to impersonate you and take control of your accounts. And while the passwords are bad news, perhaps no piece of standard personal information has more value than your phone number.