Just like the glory and grandeur of thesis triggers the critical anti-thesis, this intense age of digital deluge also gives way to certain counter-productive measures proving fatal to our evolving civilization of digital sophistication (disregarding any iota of enriched synthesis). Consequently, incidents of security issues, hacks, data breaches, usernames and passwords compromise, e-heists and of similar nature, have been dotted across the digital landscape.
In such an incidence, infamous as financially tormenting, security of personal data of around 40 million customers crumbled, earlier this week, resulting from a data breach affecting T-Mobile post paid customers and company meekly accepted the exploit.
T-Mobile is a mega telecom giant operating on US turf and the breach is analyzed to be of highly sophisticated nature and consoling the customers, the company declared, ”it is taking immediate steps to help protect all of the individuals who may be at risk from this cyberattack.”
Getting back to business, the company also accentuated the fact that no financial customer data could be gained access to. 
Conducting internal scrutiny, the company also admits the illicit escape of data of around 7.8 million subscribers as well as newly compiled data comprising 40 million prospective customers.
The breach got unearthed as reports were making rounds in online world that a somewhat sizeable data comprising of T-Mobile customers was on sale, which raised the eyebrows across the industry verticals and landscapes.
Reacting to report, the company issued a statement, “We immediately began an exhaustive investigation into these claims and brought in world-leading cybersecurity experts to help with our assessment”.
As for their prepaid customers, nearly 85 thousand names and mobile numbers, their account PINS came under illegal access, but the company is said to have reset all such PINS.
The company stated, ”We take our customers’ protection very seriously and we will continue to work around the clock on this forensic investigation to ensure we are taking care of our customers in light of this malicious attack”.
“While our investigation is ongoing, we wanted to share these initial findings even as we may learn additional facts through our investigation to ensure we are taking care of our customers in light of this malicious attack”.
”We then located and immediately closed the access point that we believe was used to illegally gain entry to our servers”.
This is not the first time that the company has been under the network onslaught. In 2015 too, personal info of about 15 million customers got into the hands of hackers.
As for the subscriber base based in UK, no hint in hindsight about the data breach. The mobile in UK got into the new brand EE as in 2012 which was sold to British Telecom in 2016 at whopping £12 billion.
Threat Of Mass Legal Action Loomed Large Over Facebook:
Ripping Facebook security perception apart, a Digital Privacy Group (DPG) considered taking this social media giant to court for massive data manipulation caused.
This was earlier in year in the month of April, that personal info of about 530 million people was revealed, which prompted such Digital Privacy group to take form to take stock of the situation.
Antony O Lachtain, Director, Digital Rights Ireland (DRI), took other popular social platforms into his warning foold stating, “This will be the first mass action of its kind but we’re sure, it won’t be the last”.
“The scale of this breach, and the depth of personal info compromised, is gob-smacking”.
He further contended, ”The laws are there to protect consumers and their personal data and it’s time these technology giants wake up to the reality that protection of personal data must be taken seriously”.
DRI is critical to the fact that user data could not get a fool-proof protection from Facebook and they were not informed about such data breach. Interestingly, those becoming a party in the case may get a compensation of around £10,445, if outcome falls in their favour.
Echoing the sentiments, Ray Walsh, digital privacy expert at ProPrivacy pointed out, ”If successful this could well set a precedent and open the door to further class action down the line. Bit Tech might then find that being made to compensate individual users is a strong reminder to work harder on privacy compliance”.
Picking up the defensive from Facebook side, its spokesman said, ”We understand people’s concern, which is why we continue to strengthen our systems to make scraping from Facebook without our permission more difficult and to go after the people behind it”.
Referring to other popular platforms, he said, ”As LinkedIn and Clubhouse have shown, no company can completely eliminate scraping or prevent data sets like these from appearing. That’s why we devote substantial resources to combat it and will continue to build out our capabilities to help stay ahead of this challenge”.
Criticism Heaped Upon Burger Chain McDonalds:
Recently, in June, this year (just 20 days before my medical procedure at Fortis Hospital by globally renowned legends of Cardiac Sciences Dr. Suman Bhandari and Dr. Z.S Meherwal), that burger chain McDonalds complained of data breach across South Korea and Taiwan as some info that it maintained of those loyal to its taste, got exposed. During the breach, emails, delivery addresses and phone numbers info got into unauthorized hands while bank and credit card details and such payment invoices remained safe.
The company boasted of its robust cyber security framework as it unearthed the sinister plot quickly. In its statement, it said, ”These tools allowed us to quickly identify and contain recent unauthorized activity on our network. A thorough investigation was conducted, and we worked with experienced third parties to support this investigation”.
The cyber disruption, however, could not affect the operations at its restaurants. Later on, the fast food firm also revealed about employees’ personal data being hacked, but of which country, it remained tightlipped.
Company went on, ”In the coming days, a few additional markets will take steps to address files that contained employee personal data.
Moving forward, McDonald’s will leverage the findings from the investigation as well as input from security resources to identify ways to further enhance our existing security measures”.
In similar incident, Game Publisher Electronic Arts claimed its source code for prime games such as FIFA 21, to be hacked alongside other important info.
Meanwhile, the CEO of Colonial Pipeline, addressing a group of senators, also bemoaned the “hardest decision” of his career, where he agreed to pay $4.4 million to hackers in Bitcoin which was, in fact, ransom.
