T-Mobile sought to minimize data breach, documents reveal

Motherboard reports that T-Mobile had enlisted a third-party to provide payments to hackers who infiltrated its systems last year in an effort to prevent further data leaks. However, the attackers continued to sell data stolen from T-Mobile despite being given $200,000 by the third-party, unsealed court documents revealed. The unsealed indictment against alleged RaidForums administrator Diogo Santos Coelho included an affidavit supporting his extradition request that included information regarding the sale of a data set from an unnamed company, which was referred to as a major U.S. telecommunications firm in other documents, on the forum in August. The unnamed company was then described to have hired a third-party who impersonated a potential buyer of the stolen data through RaidForums' administrator's middleman service. The third-party paid $50,000 in Bitcoin for a sample of the data before buying the whole database for nearly $150,000 provided that the seller deletes their copy. However, the data continued to be sold after the third-party's purchase. T-Mobile has yet to comment on the report.