T-Mobile US Inc agreed on Friday to pay $350 million to settle litigation over a cyberattack last year that hacked the personal information of an estimated 76.6 million people, according to Reuters. In addition, the carrier was ordered to spend an additional $150 million to upgrade its data security. The litigation was the culmination of 44 class actions lawsuits filed across the United States.
T-Mobile has denied that it did not adequately protect customers’ personal information and tried, unsuccessfully, to prove it had adequate data security. The data breach occurred last August, affecting more than 47 million current, former and prospective customers giving up names, addresses, birth dates, driver’s license data and Social Security numbers.
Affected customers may receive cash payments of $25, or $100 in California, and some could receive up to $25,000 to cover out-of-pocket losses, settlement papers show. They will also receive two years of identity theft protection, Reuters reported.
The self-confessed hacker was John Binns, a 21-year-old American who, according to the Wall Street Journal, said he garnered the data after he found an unprotected router on the internet.
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