current issues of security breach associated with the cloud process

Abstract

The study provided below deals with the facts regarding the current issues of security breach associated with the cloud process. For this, the communications company in the US, named T-Mobile USA, INC, has been highlighted, which were also having similar issues as it was unable to protect its customer database from being hacked. This was the issue of the company for two consecutive years, which had made many monetary losses of the company.  Hence, the study sheds light on the facts associated with the threats faced by the concerned company to identify its causes, type, and precautionary measures undertaken by the management, along with some other protection techniques.

Introduction

The current study is based on a company named T-Mobile USA, INC, which is determined to have faced threats of security breach twice for its customer database. Regarding this, the study identifies the nature and background of the company so that the threats faced by it for the security breach on the cloud process can be identified. With this, the reasons for such threats, along with the precautionary measures undertaken by its management, have also been highlighted in the study. For the betterment of its activities, some other measures have been identified, which can be applied by the concerned company for better protection of its customer database.

T-Mobile USA, INC

Industry

T-Mobile USA, INC is an operator in the telecommunication industry, providing wireless network services to its customers. Though the majority of its shares are held by the German telecommunications organization named Deutsche Telekom, it is heading its operations from Washington, USA (T-mobile.com, 2020). It is the third-largest wireless service provider in the country, serving around 86.0 customers, as reviewed at the end of the year 2019. The said company is consuming most of the market through its wireless data and voice services to its customers (T-mobile.com, 2020). Moreover, it also functions as a host network to some virtual network providers.

Background

T-Mobile USA, INC was established in 1994 as VoiceStream Wireless, which was renamed as T-Mobile in 2002 (T-mobile.com, 2020). It is having a vast range of services, which was used by a large number of customers, connecting people within the country. With its spread of operations, the concerned company also sometimes became vulnerable to data breaches on the cloud, which formed some severe threats in its operations. This was mostly associated with customer data, which were hacked in the consecutive years of 2018 and 2019 (T-mobile.com, 2020). Despite taking remedial measures in 2018, a similar type of threat hampered the operations of T-Mobile in 2019, which required evaluation if the measures undertaken by the said company are appropriate or not.

Type of Threat(s)

There was a data breach for T-Mobile in 2018 when it was revealed that hackers stole its customer database, containing customer names, zip codes for billing, account number, emails, phone numbers, and the type of their T-Mobile account. Such personal information of the customers was extracted for nearly 2 million T-Mobile customers (Mathews, 2018). This number was nearly 3 percent of the total customers T-Mobile was having at that time. However, it was revealed by the company officials that no financial information was exposed to the hackers, including passwords, financial data, billing data, and numbers for the social security of the customers (Mathews, 2018). This was the scenario of threat regarding the cloud-related security breach that T-Mobile was exposed to in 2018.

In 2019, a similar threat occurred again to T-Mobile, when again personal data of the customers were hacked. This also included customer names, phone numbers, billing address, account numbers, and account types. This time, the impact was noticed upon 1.23 million customers of T-Mobile, which is about 1.5 percent of its total customers of 84.2 million (Snider, 2019). However, this time also, other financial information of the customers, including their credit card numbers, could not be extracted by the hackers through their illegal procedure. Such an online breach has cost much to the said company, which is around $1.23 million (Snider, 2019). This is because security breaches have cost much for protecting the employees in all respects.

What or (who) caused the threat (s)?

Investigations were made by the management of T-Mobile regarding such breach of the cloud data of customers. Regarding this, security researchers witnessed weakness in the security system of customer data, which was in the subdomain of the said company. This was returning customers’ data, which was not requiring any passwords for that. While taking the advantage, the hackers managed to extract a vital customer database by exploiting an API, which is an application programming interface (Mathews, 2018). This is a set consisting of various blocks required to build software, which helps the software developers in managing technologies or data during the creation of any application. Moreover, in 2019, the cybersecurity team of T-Mobile detected that the accessed data by the hackers were associated with the customer wireless account that was prepaid (Snider, 2019).

How was the Threat Discovered?

The threat was discovered by the cybersecurity team of T-Mobile, who noticed that hackers were able to extract vulnerable customer information through exploiting the API in the subdomain of the said company. According to the officials, T-Mobile is entirely not immune to and protected from such type of hacking activities and criminal attacks. However, it is having some safeguarding operations so that the personal information of the customers can be protected from any kind of illegal or unauthorized access or disclosure (Mathews, 2018). Furthermore, its safeguarding system is capable of quickly discovering illegal activities and preventing them before any hamper in the activities of T-Mobile is seen. However, the breaches of cloud data of T-Mobile are quite common in the company due to similar reasons, which was previously seen in 2015. During that time, the illegal access to personal data of its customers affected nearly 15 million of them (Mathews, 2018). These records were compromised by T-Mobile through a security breach associated with Experian, which was the company associated with the activities regarding the credit applications of T-Mobile.

What actions would you have taken to Avoid the Threat?

The most crucial action that can be undertaken to avoid the threats that have been witnessed by T-Mobile is the encryption of data along with keeping a regular backup of essential data (Thota et al., 2017). Confidential data can be encrypted by the management of the said company before they are uploaded in a cloud storage system (Kaliyamurthie, 2017). However, five keyways can be applied for the same so that the database of customers can be protected from any unauthorized access.

Setting strong passwords: It is essential to set strong passwords for protecting any data on the cloud storage system so that they can be highly protected from unauthorized access. Strong passwords comprise mixed characters, including alphabets, symbols, and numbers, which makes them quite hard to be discovered (Rana et al., 2017). Moreover, these passwords can be frequently changed so that they do not remain the same over the years. Such a policy makes the passwords stronger, thus making databases more protected against crime.

Single Sign-on (SSO): It can be applied in the case of T-Mobile, as it has been using a centralized system of user directory for maintaining valuable customers’ databases (Rizvi & Mitchell, 2016). With this, managing data for the concerned company can become more accessible and convenient. Regarding this, the management only has to keep access to one password. If any probable data thefts or unauthorized data access is identified, the network administrator of the concerned company will be capable of removing all the access to the company database immediately (Jakimoski, 2016). This will be more effective if any of the company employees of T-Mobile is either on leave or has left the company. In that case, the authorities of the said company can easily disable their individual accounts. With this process, the logging in the process of the employees can be restricted from other systems along with removing their individual accessibility into the company database.

IP Whitelisting: In this process, the IP addresses can be checked over before they are given access or authorization. This is done through identifying the address and comparing it with a list that consists of the applicable IP addresses, which will help in identifying if the device using the address is authorized for using the account (Levitin et al., 2017). As all the data of T-Mobile are maintained online in the cloud storage, this can be more applicable through defining the provided set of IP addresses so that the available list of IP addresses can be added up to the company database. Apart from these, all other addresses can be redirected by the company officials so that they do not get access to the critical database of T-Mobile.

Monitoring: Though the first step of restricting unauthorized access for T-Mobile is preventing the same from getting over their customer database, monitoring is also required for the same. This is because monitoring the activities of the users, along with their login attempts, can provide better views of the ways that can be used for protecting against unauthorized access (Pokharel et al., 2017).

Two-factor authentication: This is one of the best ways that can be applied by the officials of T-Mobile so that the authorization process can identify only the company officials who are accessing the customer database (Reza & Sonawane, 2016). For this, another device will be required by the management apart from the most used passwords and user logins. The separate device will help by entering a code that can be generated by the user instantly through the use of a separate device (Hernández et al., 2018).

The security processes that are mentioned above regarding the customer database protection of T-Mobile, it can be said that these methods are mostly essential for such companies. This is due to the increase in the number of hackers nowadays, along with the rate of frauds and spams in the virtual world (Nicholson, 2019). This is more relevant for T-Mobile, as the company has already faced a breach of data security twice due to the lack of appropriate measures for protecting its customer database. Moreover, it also costs the said company a lot of money, which is not at all appropriate for any company, as it also causes loss of reputation in the industry.

How did Company Personnel Resolve the Threat?

In the first phase of the preventive measures undertaken by the officials of T-Mobile, text notifications were sent to its individual customers regarding the issues and informing them clearly about the illegal activities. This was done by the management so that the customers do not panic if they receive any kind of spam emails or texts (Mathews, 2018). Next, they acted at their best to reach their customers so that they can be added regarding the issues with the best available techniques. The management also apologized to the valuable customers of T-Mobile, who were affected by this threat for the inconvenience and said that they are taking preventive measures so that such kind of incidents do not happen again in the future (Mathews, 2018). Moreover, according to the company officials, such a break of the cloud data is attracting the attention of the management regarding the benefits that it can provide its customers after its merger activity with Sprint. This can be done by making significant changes in its operations so that better services can be provided to its customers, along with protecting their data and essential information from illegal disclosures.

After the cybersecurity team found out the cause for such unauthorized access, its team dealing with incidence response went up for the current challenge of such an issue. They took steps to shut-out all the hacking activities against the customer database, which was quite immediately after the detection of the threat was made (Mathews, 2018). Further, they restricted the hackers from getting any further access to the extensive customer database. This was followed by immediate reporting activity to the concerned and senior authorities of the said company regarding such breach incidence so that necessary legal approaches can be undertaken further (Snider, 2019). The management also undertook some actions so that online networking for the customers can be restricted from sharing location data of its customers with any third party. Moreover, official notices were issued to the customers for such a security breach to all the affected customers of T-Mobile through appropriate press releases.

Known Repercussions

The most noticeable repercussion that T-Mobile faced during the issue of cloud breach was the monetary losses. It had witnessed much loss of money for such unauthorized intrusion into its customer database so that its customers can be protected from any frauds and spams. Moreover, said the company also had negative impacts on its brand, goodwill, and reputation due to such repeated crime, the authorities of the crime were faced (Snider, 2019). This was relevant for the concerned company in two consecutive years, as the management was not active in undertaking relevant actions for addressing the issue. Otherwise, it would not have been repeated in 2019 after it happened in 2018.

Conclusion

The current study highlights that it is crucial for any company, especially the ones that are keeping their valuable data on cloud options, to undertake protective and preventive measures. This is because, with the help of such measures, any frauds can be restricted along with any unauthorized access to any of the company data. From the activities of T-Mobile, it is quite relevant that the authorities of the company were not taking appropriate measures so that its customer database. Regarding this, some appropriate measures have been highlighted in the study, which can help with the process of protecting the database in the long-term. Moreover, this can also help in making the security system more robust for the database of T-Mobile than before so that the hackers or the fraudsters find it quite challenging to break the security system for accessing critical customer databases.

References

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