After Experian admitted it had been breached, resulting in the loss of 15m T-Mobile US customer records, industry experts have their say on the latest major corporate data breach.
1. Jonathan Sander, VP of Product Strategy, Lieberman Software
“The only thing T-Mobile customers whose data has been swept up in the Experian breach can do is continue – or perhaps start – to live as if their data is now public knowledge.
"That means keeping a very watchful eye on transactions and being doubly suspicious of those who comes calling to “help.”
2. Ken Westin, Senior Security Analyst, Tripwire:
"This should be a wake up call for the carriers and their business partners to be on guard as we usually see these types of attacks occur in clusters within a given industry.”
3. Tim Erlin director of IT security and risk strategy,Tripwire:
“The fact that no other customers of Experian’s appear to be compromised indicates that they’re segregating the data in a way that limits exposure.
"Breaches are a fact of life these days, and limiting damage is an important part of a comprehensive protection strategy."
4. Mark James, IT Security Specialist, ESET:
“This data may be used in targeted phishing attacks to get more useful data that could also be used for identify theft or other malicious purposes.
5. Richard Parris, CEO, Intercede
"Telecommunications industry has a lot of work to do in order to restore consumer faith. Protecting customers’ private data should be a top priority for any organisation.
"Failure to demonstrate that adequate safeguards are in place could result in customer churn to a competitor.”
