HELENA – After nearly 37,000 Montanans had their personal information compromised by a massive T-Mobile data breach, Attorney General Austin Knudsen is urging all Montanans who may have been impacted to take appropriate steps to protect their information from identity theft. T-Mobile announced the breach last year but compromised information has recently been for sale on the dark web. Montanans do not need to be current customers of T-Mobile to have been affected

On August 17, 2021, T-Mobile reported a massive data breach impacting 53 million current, former, and prospective T-Mobile customers nationwide. In Montana, that included 2,752 customers and 34,071 former or prospective T-Mobile customers. Among other categories of impacted information, millions had their names, dates of birth, Social Security Numbers, and driver’s license information compromised.

Recently, a large subset of the information compromised in the breach was for sale on the dark web—a hidden portion of the Internet where cyber criminals buy, sell, and track personal information. Many individuals have since received alerts through various identity theft protection services informing them that their information was found online in connection with the breach, confirming that impacted individuals are at heightened risk for identity theft. However, not all were affected will have received these alerts.

Attorney General Knudsen urges anyone who believes they were impacted by the T-Mobile breach to take the following steps to protect themselves:

• Monitor your credit. Credit monitoring services track your credit report and alert you whenever a change is made, such as a new account or a large purchase. Most services will notify you within 24 hours of any change to your credit report.
• Consider placing a free credit freeze on your credit report. Identity thieves will not be able to open a new credit account in your name while the freeze is in place. You can place a credit freeze by contacting each of the three major credit bureaus:
  • Equifax | https://www.equifax.com/personal/credit-report-services/credit-freeze/ or +1 (888) 766-0008
  • Experian | https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html or +1 (888) 397-3742
  • TransUnion | https://www.transunion.com/credit-freeze or +1 (800) 680-7289

• Place a fraud alert on your credit report. A fraud alert tells lenders and creditors to take extra steps to verify your identity before issuing credit. You can place a fraud alert by contacting any one of the three major credit bureaus.
• Additional Resources. If you believe you are a victim of identity theft, go to identitytheft.gov for assistance on how to report it and recover from it—or contact the Department of Justice’s Office of Consumer Protection at 406-444-4500 for help.