Dell has notified some customers about a data breach reported to include 49 million records.

Dell is warning its customers about a data breach after a cybercriminal offered a 49 million-record database of information about Dell customers on a cybercrime forum.

A cybercriminal called Menelik posted the following message on the “Breach Forums” site:

> “The data includes 49 million customer and other information of systems purchased from Dell between 2017-2024.
> 
> It is up to date information registered at Dell servers.
> 
> Feel free to contact me to discuss use cases and opportunities.
> 
> I am the only person who has the data.”

Screenshot taken from the Breach Forums

According to Menelik the data includes:

*   The full name of the buyer or company name
*   Address including postal code and country
*   Unique seven digit service tag of the system
*   Shipping date of the system
*   Warranty plan
*   Serial number
*   Dell customer number
*   Dell order number

Most of the affected systems were sold in the US, China, India, Australia, and Canada.

Users on Reddit reported getting an email from Dell which was apparently sent to customers whose information was accessed during this incident:

> “At this time, our investigation indicates limited types of customer information was accessed, including:
> 
> *   Name
> *   Physical address
> *   Dell hardware and order information, including service tag, item description, date of order and related warranty information.
> 
> The information involved does not include financial or payment information, email address, telephone number or any highly sensitive customer information.”

Although Dell might be trying to play down the seriousness of the situation by claiming that there is not a significant risk to its customers given the type of information involved, it is reassuring that there were no email addresses included. Email addresses are a unique identifier that can allow data brokers to merge and enrich their databases.

So, this is another big data breach that leaves us with more questions than answers. We have to be careful that we don’t shrug these data breaches away with comments like “they already know everything there is to know.”

This kind of information is exactly what scammers need in order to impersonate Dell support.

**Protecting yourself from a data breach**

There are some actions you can take if you are, or suspect you may have been, the victim of a data breach.

*   **Check the vendor’s advice.** Every breach is different, so check with the vendor to find out what’s happened, and follow any specific advice they offer.
*   **Change your password.** You can make a stolen password useless to thieves by changing it. Choose a strong password that you don’t use for anything else. Better yet, let a password manager choose one for you.
*   **Enable two-factor authentication (2FA).** If you can, use a FIDO2-compliant hardware key, laptop or phone as your second factor. Some forms of two-factor authentication (2FA) can be phished just as easily as a password. 2FA that relies on a FIDO2 device can’t be phished.
*   **Watch out for fake vendors.** The thieves may contact you posing as the vendor. Check the vendor website to see if they are contacting victims, and verify any contacts using a different communication channel.
*   **Take your time.** Phishing attacks often impersonate people or brands you know, and use themes that require urgent attention, such as missed deliveries, account suspensions, and security alerts.
*   **Set up identity monitoring.** Identity monitoring alerts you if your personal information is found being traded illegally online, and helps you recover after.

If you want to find out how much of your data has been exposed online, you can try our free Digital Footprint scan. Fill in the email address you’re curious about (it’s best to submit the one you most frequently use) and we’ll send you a free report.

 Dell notifies customers about data breach 

Medical health care provider DocGo has disclosed a cyberincident where an attacker gained access to protected health information.

Medical health care provider DocGo has disclosed in a form 8-K that it experienced a cybersecurity incident involving some of the company’s systems. As part of the investigation of the incident, the company says it has determined that the attacker accessed and acquired data, including certain protected health information.

DocGo is a healthcare provider that offers mobile health services, ambulance services, and remote monitoring for patients in 30 US states, and across the United Kingdom. On its company website it touts over 7,000,000 patient interactions.

In the same form, DocGo says the breach concerns a limited number of healthcare records within the company’s US-based ambulance transportation business, and that no other business lines have been involved.

DocGo says it is actively reaching out to those individuals who had their data compromised in the attack.  

So far, we have no indication what the nature of the cyberattack was, but it is almost standard procedure nowadays for ransomware groups to use stolen data as extra leverage to get the victim to pay the ransom.

**Protecting yourself from a data breach**

There are some actions you can take if you are, or suspect you may have been, the victim of a data breach.

*   **Check the vendor’s advice.** Every breach is different, so check with the vendor to find out what’s happened, and follow any specific advice they offer.
*   **Change your password.** You can make a stolen password useless to thieves by changing it. Choose a strong password that you don’t use for anything else. Better yet, let a password manager choose one for you.
*   **Enable two-factor authentication (2FA).** If you can, use a FIDO2-compliant hardware key, laptop or phone as your second factor. Some forms of two-factor authentication (2FA) can be phished just as easily as a password. 2FA that relies on a FIDO2 device can’t be phished.
*   **Watch out for fake vendors.** The thieves may contact you posing as the vendor. Check the vendor website to see if they are contacting victims, and verify any contacts using a different communication channel.
*   **Take your time.** Phishing attacks often impersonate people or brands you know, and use themes that require urgent attention, such as missed deliveries, account suspensions, and security alerts.
*   **Set up identity monitoring.** Identity monitoring alerts you if your personal information is found being traded illegally online, and helps you recover after.

**Check your digital footprint**

Malwarebytes has a new free tool for you to check how much of your personal data has been exposed online. Submit your email address (it’s best to give the one you most frequently use) to our free Digital Footprint scan and we’ll give you a report and recommendations.

 DocGo patient health data stolen in cyberattack 

When there are not nearly enough tickets for some concerts to accommodate all the fans that desperately want to be there, it makes for ideal hunting grounds for scammers.

Ticket scams are very common and apparently hard to stop. When there are not nearly enough tickets for some concerts to accommodate all the fans that desperately want to be there, it makes for ideal hunting grounds for scammers.

With a ticket scam, you pay for a ticket and you either don’t receive anything or what you get doesn’t get you into the venue.

As reported by the BBC, Lloyds Bank estimates that fans have lost an estimated £1m ($1.25 m) in ticket scams ahead of the UK leg of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour. Roughly 90% of these scams were said to have started on Facebook.

Many of these operations work with compromised Facebook accounts and make both the buyer and the owner of the abused account feel bad. These account owners are complaining about the response, or lack thereof, they are getting from Meta (Facebook’s parent company) about their attempts to report the account takeovers.

Victims feel powerless as they see some of their friends and family fall for the ticket scam.

> “After I reported it, there were still scams going on for at least two or three weeks afterwards.”

We saw the same last year when “Swifties” from the US filed reports about scammers taking advantage of fans, some of whom lost as much as $2,500 after paying for tickets that didn’t exist or never arrived. The Better Business Bureau reportedly received almost 200 complaints nationally related to the Swift tour, with complaints ranging from refund struggles to outright scams.

Now that the tour has European cities on the schedule the same is happening all over again.

And mind you, it’s not just concerts. Any event that is sold out through the regular, legitimate channels and works with transferable tickets is an opportunity for scammers. Recently we saw a scam working from sponsored search results for the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. People that clicked on the ad were redirected to a fake phishing site where they were asked to fill out their credit card details.

Consider that to be a reminder that it’s easy for scammers to set up a fake website that looks genuine. Some even use a name or website url that is similar to the legitimate website. If you’re unsure or it sounds too good to be true, leave the website immediately.

Equally important to keep in mind is the power of AI which has taken the creation of a photograph of—fake—tickets to a level that it’s child’s play.

**How to avoid ticket scams**

No matter how desperate you are to visit a particular event, please be careful. When it’s sold out and someone offers you tickets, there are a few precautions you should take.

*   **Research the ticket seller**. Anybody can set up a fake ticket website, and sponsored ads showing at the top of search engines can be rife with bogus sellers. You may also run into issues buying tickets from sites like eBay. Should you decide to use sites other than well-known entities like Ticketmaster, check for reviews of the seller.
*   **Are the tickets transferable?** For some events the tickets are non-transferable which makes it, at least, unwise to try and buy tickets from someone who has decided they “don’t need or want them” after all. You may end up with tickets that you can’t use.
*   **Use a credit card if possible**. You’ll almost certainly have more protection than if you pay using your debit card, or cash. We definitely recommend that you avoid using cash. If someone decides to rip you off, that money is gone forever.
*   **A “secure” website isn’t all it seems**. While sites that use HTTPS (the padlock) ensure your communication is secure, this does _not_ guarantee the site is legitimate. Anyone can set up a HTTPs website, including scammers.
*   **It’s ticket inspector time**. One of the best ways to know for sure that your ticket is genuine is to actually look at it. Is the date and time correct? The location? Are the seat numbers what you were expecting to see? It may well be worth calling the event organizers or the event location and confirming that all is as it should be. Some events will give examples of what a genuine ticket should look like on the official website.
*   **Use a blocklist.** Software like Malwarebytes Browser Guard will block known phishing and scam sites.

 Desperate Taylor Swift fans defrauded by ticket scams 

This week on the Lock and Code podcast, we speak with Dr. Jean Twenge about smartphones, social media, and a teen mental health crisis.

_This week on the Lock and Code podcast…_

You’ve likely felt it: The dull pull downwards of a smartphone scroll. The “five more minutes” just before bed. The sleep still there after waking. The edges of your calm slowly fraying.

After more than a decade of our most recent technological experiment, in turns out that having the entirety of the internet in the palm of your hands could be … not so great. Obviously, the effects of this are compounded by the fact that the internet that was built after the invention of the smartphone is a very different internet than the one before—supercharged with algorithms that get you to click more, watch more, buy more, and rest so much less.

But for one group, in particular, across the world, the impact of smartphones and constant social media may be causing an unprecedented mental health crisis: Young people.

According to the American College Health Association, the percentage of undergraduates in the US—so, mainly young adults in college—who were diagnosed with anxiety increased 134% since 2010. In the same time period for the same group, there was in increase in diagnoses of depression by 106%, ADHD by 72%, bipolar by 57%, and anorexia by 100%.

That’s not all. According to a US National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the prevalence of anxiety in America increased for every age group except those over 50, again, since 2010. Those aged 35 – 49 experienced a 52% increase, those aged 26 – 34 experienced a 103% increase, and those aged 18 – 25 experienced a 139% increase.

This data, and much more, was cited by the social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt, in debuting his latest book, “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.” In the book, Haidt examines what he believes is a mental health crisis unique amongst today’s youth, and he proposes that much of the crisis has been brought about by a change in childhood—away from a “play-based” childhood and into a “phone-based” one.

This shift, Haidt argues, is largely to blame for the increased rates of anxiety, depression, suicidality, and more.

And rather than just naming the problem, Haidt also proposes five solutions to turn things around:

*   Give children far more time playing with other children. 
*   Look for more ways to embed children in stable real-world communities.  
*   Don’t give a smartphone as the first phone.
*   Don’t give a smartphone until high school.  
*   Delay the opening of accounts on nearly all social media platforms until the beginning of high school (at least).

But while Haidt’s proposals may feel right—his book has spent five weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list—some psychologists disagree.

Writing for the outlet Platformer, reporter Zoe Schiffer spoke with multiple behavioral psychologists who alleged that Haidt’s book cherry-picks survey data, ignores mental health crises amongst adults, and over-simplifies a complex problem with a blunt solution.  

Today, on the Lock and Code podcast with host David Ruiz, we speak with Dr. Jean Twenge to get more clarity on the situation: Is there a mental health crisis amongst today’s teens? Is it unique to their generation? And can it really be traced to the use of smartphones and social media?

According to Dr. Twenge, the answer to all those questions is, pretty much, “Yes.” But, she said, there’s still some hope to be found.

> “This is where the argument around smartphones and social media being behind the adolescent mental health crisis actually has, kind of paradoxically, some optimism to it. Because if that’s the cause, that means we can do something about it.”

Tune in today to listen to the full conversation.

_Show notes and credits:_

Intro Music: “Spellbound” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)  
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License  
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/  
Outro Music: “Good God” by Wowa (unminus.com)

**Listen up—Malwarebytes doesn’t just talk cybersecurity, we provide it.**

Protect yourself from online attacks that threaten your identity, your files, your system, and your financial well-being with our exclusive offer for Malwarebytes Premium for Lock and Code listeners.

 Tracing what went wrong in 2012 for today’s teens, with Dr. Jean Twenge: Lock and Code S04E10 

A list of topics we covered in the week of April 29 to May 5 of 2024

May 2, 2024 - After a breach in the Dropbox Sign environment, customer information may have been stolen and API users have restricted functionality

May 2, 2024 - Our researchers found fake sponsored search results that lead consumers to a typical fake Microsoft alert site set up by tech support scammers.

April 30, 2024 - Malwarebytes Premium earned "Product of the Year" from AVLab for repeatedly blocking 100% of malware samples used in third-party testing.

April 29, 2024 - Health insurance giant Kaiser has announced it will notify millions of patients that it shared their data with advertisers.

April 24, 2024 - The US Senate has approved a bill that will ban TikTok, unless it finds a new owner, bringing it one step closer to being signed into law.

 A week in security (April 29 &#8211; May 5) 

Microsoft is rolling out passkey support for all devices. Here's a quick guide on how to create one.

Microsoft is rolling out passkey support for all consumer accounts.

Passkeys are a very secure replacement for passwords that can’t be cracked, guessed or phished, and let you log in easily, without having to type a password every time.

After enabling them in Windows 11 last year, Microsoft account owners can now generate passkeys across multiple platforms including Windows, Android, and iOS. You can create passkeys for your Microsoft account, and you can choose your face, fingerprint, PIN, or a security key to secure it.

**How to set up a passkey**

To create a passkey for your Microsoft account, follow these steps on the device where you’d like to create a passkey:

*   Sign in to your Microsoft account.
*   Navigate to **Security**  > **Advanced Security Options**.

*   Click on **Get started**.
*   Choose **Add a new way to sign in or verify**.

Note: Under certain circumstances, somewhere along the way you may end up in this screen which basically offers you the same choices in a prompt.

*   To create a passkey: Select **Face, fingerprint, PIN, or security key**.
*   Follow the instructions on your device.
*   During this process, you can choose to save the passkey to different devices like your Android, iPad, or iPhone, or a hardware key.
*   You’ll be presented with a QR code to scan with the selected device.
*   On the selected device you’ll be asked to authenticate.
*   When the procedure is successful, you’ll be asked to provide a name for the passkey. A good choice is to use a name that gives away the location where you stored the passkey.

Where is you passkey saved? Give this passkey a name to easily manage it later.

*   After confirming the name you’ll see this confirmation.

Passkey added. You can now use this passkey to sign in to your account.

**Removing a passkey**

Should you have second thoughts and want to remove a passkey, follow these steps:

*   Visit the **Advanced Security Options**.
*   From the list under **Ways to prove who you are**, select the passkey you’d like to remove.
*   Choose **Remove**.

**We don’t just report on threats—we remove them**

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.

 You get a passkey, you get a passkey, everyone should get a passkey 

After a breach in the Dropbox Sign environment, customer information may have been stolen and API users have restricted functionality

Dropbox is reporting a recent “security incident” in which an attacker gained unauthorized access to the Dropbox Sign (formerly HelloSign) production environment. During this access, the attacker had access to Dropbox Sign customer information.

Dropbox Sign is a platform that allows customers to digitally sign, edit, and track documents. The accessed customer information includes email addresses, usernames, phone numbers, and hashed passwords, in addition to general account settings and certain authentication information such as API keys, OAuth tokens, and multi-factor authentication. The access is limited to Dropbox Sign customers and does not affect users of other Dropbox services because the environments are largely separate.

> “We believe that this incident was isolated to Dropbox Sign infrastructure and did not impact any other Dropbox products.”

Even if you never created a Dropbox Sign account but received or signed a document through Dropbox Sign, your email addresses and names were exposed. In a government (K-8) filing about the incident, Dropbox says it found no evidence of unauthorized access to the contents of customers’ accounts (i.e. their documents or agreements), or their payment information. 

The attacker compromised a back-end service account that acted as an automated system configuration tool for the Dropbox Sign environment. The attacker used the privileges of the service account for the production environment to gain access to the customer database.

To limit the aftermath of the incident, Dropbox’s security team reset users’ passwords, logged users out of any devices they had connected to Dropbox Sign, and is coordinating the rotation of all API keys and OAuth tokens.

For customers with API access to Dropbox Sign, the company said new API keys will need to be generated and warned that certain functionality will be restricted while they deal with the breach.

Dropbox says it has reported this event to data protection regulators and law enforcement.

**Recommendations**

Dropbox expired affected passwords and logged users out of any devices they had connected to Dropbox Sign for further protection. The next time these users log in to their Sign account, they’ll be sent an email to reset the password. Dropbox recommends users do this as soon as possible.

If you’re an API customer, to ensure the security of your account, you’ll need to rotate your API key by generating a new one, configuring it with your application, and deleting your current one. Here is how you can easily create a new key.

API customers should be aware that names and email addresses for those who received or signed a document through Dropbox Sign, even if they never created an account, were exposed. So, this may impact their customers.

Customers who use an authenticator app for multi-factor authentication should reset it. Please delete your existing entry and then reset it. If you use SMS you do not need to take any action.

If you reused your Dropbox Sign password on any other services, we strongly recommend that you change your password on those accounts and use multi-factor authentication when available.

****Protecting yourself from a data breach****

There are some actions you can take if you are, or suspect you may have been, the victim of a data breach.

*   **Check the vendor’s advice.** Every breach is different, so check with the vendor to find out what’s happened and follow any specific advice they offer.
*   **Change your password.** You can make a stolen password useless to thieves by changing it. Choose a strong password that you don’t use for anything else. Better yet, let a password manager choose one for you.
*   **Enable two-factor authentication (2FA).** If you can, use a FIDO2-compliant hardware key, laptop, or phone as your second factor. Some forms of two-factor authentication (2FA) can be phished just as easily as a password. 2FA that relies on a FIDO2 device can’t be phished.
*   **Watch out for fake vendors.** The thieves may contact you posing as the vendor. Check the vendor website to see if they are contacting victims and verify any contacts using a different communication channel.
*   **Take your time.** Phishing attacks often impersonate people or brands you know, and use themes that require urgent attention, such as missed deliveries, account suspensions, and security alerts.
*   **Set up identity monitoring.** Identity monitoring alerts you if your personal information is found being traded illegally online, and helps you recover after.

Malwarebytes has a new free tool for you to check how much of your personal data has been exposed online. Submit your email address (it’s best to give the one you most frequently use) to our free Digital Footprint scan and we’ll give you a report and recommendations.

**We don’t just report on threats – we help safeguard your entire digital identit**y

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your—and your family’s—personal information by using identity protection

 Dropbox Sign customer data accessed in breach 

Our researchers found fake sponsored search results that lead consumers to a typical fake Microsoft alert site set up by tech support scammers.

_This blog post was written based on research carried out by Jérôme Segura._

A campaign using sponsored search results is targeting home users and taking them to tech support scams.

Sponsored search results are the ones that are listed at the top of search results and are labelled “Sponsored”. They’re often ads that are taken out by brands who want to get people to click through to their website. In the case of malicious sponsored ads, scammers tend to outbid the brands in order to be listed as the first search result.

The criminals that buy the ads will go as far as displaying the official brand’s website within the ad snippet, making it hard for an unsuspecting visitor to notice a difference.

Who would, for example, be able to spot that the below ad for CNN is not legitimate. You’ll have to click on the three dots (in front of where we added malicious ad) and look at the advertiser information to see that it’s not the legitimate owner of the brand.

Only then it becomes apparent that the real advertiser is not CNN, but instead a company called Yojoy Network Technology Co., Limited.

Below, you can see another fake advertisement by the same advertiser, this time impersonating Amazon.

In our example, the scammers failed to use the correct CNN or Amazon icons, but in other cases (like another recent discovery by Jerome Segura), scammers have even used the correct icon.

The systems of the people that click one of these links are likely to assessed on what the most profitable follow-up is (using a method called fingerprinting). For systems running Windows, we found visitors are redirected to tech support scam websites such as this one.

_Tech Support Scam site telling the visitor to call 1-844-476-5780_

You undoubtedly know the type. Endless pop-ups, soundbites, and prompts telling the visitor that they should urgently call the displayed number to free their system of alleged malware.

These tech support scammers will impersonate legitimate software companies (i.e. Microsoft) and charge their victims hundreds or even thousands of dollars for completely bogus malware removal.

**Getting help if you have been scammed**

Getting scammed is one of the worst feelings to experience. In many ways, you may feel like you have been violated and angry to have let your guard down. Perhaps you are even shocked and scared, and don’t really know what to do now. The following tips will hopefully provide you with some guidance.

**If you’ve already let the scammers in**

*   Revoke any remote access the scammer has (if you are unsure, restart your computer). That should cut the remote session and kick them out of your computer.
*   Scan your computer for malware. The miscreants may have installed password stealers or other Trojans to capture your keystrokes. Use a program such as Malwarebytes to quickly identify and remove threats.
*   Change all your passwords. (Windows password, email, banking, etc.)

**If you’ve already paid**

*   Contact your financial institution/credit card company to reverse the charges and keep an eye out for future unwanted charges.
*   If you gave them personal information such as date of birth, Social Security Number, full address, name, and maiden name, you may want to look at some form of identity theft protection.

****Reporting the scam****

**File a report**

*   In the US: File a complaint (FTC)
*   In Canada: Contact law enforcement
*   In the UK: Report fraud | Report a cold call
*   In Australia: Report a scam

**Shut down their remote software account**

*   Write down the TeamViewer ID (9-digit code) and send it to TeamViewer’s support. They can later use the information you provide to block people/companies.
*   LogMeIn: Report abuse

**Spread the word**

You can raise awareness by letting your friends, family, and other acquaintances know what happened to you. Although sharing your experience of falling victim to these scams may be embarrassing, educating other people will help someone caught in a similar situation and deter further scam attempts.

**We don’t just report on threats – we help safeguard your entire digital identit**y

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your—and your family’s—personal information by using identity protection

 Watch out for tech support scams lurking in sponsored search results 

The hacker behind the extortion of mental health clinic Vastaamo and its clients has been convicted to over 6 years in jail.

On October 30, 2020, I started a article with the words:

“Hell is too nice a place for these people.”

The subject of this outrage focused on the cybercriminals behind an attack on Finnish psychotherapy practice Vastaamo. Because it was a psychotherapy practice, the records contained extremely sensitive and confidential information about some of the most vulnerable people.

Sadly, the attacker did not stop at extorting the clinic but also sent extortion messages to the patients, asking them to pay around $240 to prevent their data from being published online. And that was a first, as far as we know—not just demanding a ransom from the breached organization, but also from all those that were unlucky enough to have their data on record there.

The attacker demanded a €400,000 ($425,000) ransom from the company. When it refused to pay, he emailed thousands of patients asking for €200 and threatening to publish their therapy notes and personal details on the dark web if they didn’t pay. He ended up publishing it anyway.

As a result of this cyberattack and the extortion attempts:

*   Vastaamo’s board fired the CEO because they held him responsible for knowing about the breaches and of the shortcomings in the psychotherapy provider’s data security systems.
*   Vastaamo’s owner, who bought the practice a few months after the second breach but was not informed about it, began legal proceedings related to its purchase.
*   Vastaamo had to shut its doors because it could not meet its financial obligations.
*   The Finnish government contemplated expanding the options for individuals to change their social security number in certain circumstances, such as the aftermath of a hacking incident.
*   At least one suicide has been linked to the case.

Now the attacker has been convicted. 26-year-old Julius Kivimäki has been sentenced to six years and three months in prison. Kivimäki, known online as Zeekill, was one of the leading members of several groups of teenage cybercriminals which caused chaos between 2009-2015. One of those groups was the infamous Lizard Squad.

At the age of 17, Kivimäki was convicted of more than 50,000 computer hacks and sentenced to a two-year prison sentence, which was suspended because he was 15 and 16 when he carried out the crimes in 2012 and 2013.

Despite the conviction, the Vastaamo case is not over as civil court cases are now likely to begin to seek compensation for the victims of the hack.

**We don’t just report on threats – we help safeguard your entire digital identit**y

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your—and your family’s—personal information by using identity protection

 Psychotherapy practice hacker gets jail time after extorting patients, publishing personal therapy notes online 

Four major wireless carriers have been fined by the FCC for sharing access to customers’ location data without consent.

After four years of investigation, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has concluded that four of the major wireless carriers in the US violated the law in sharing access to customers’ location data.

The FCC fined AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon a total of almost $200 million for “illegally sharing access to customers’ location information without consent and without taking reasonable measures to protect that information against unauthorized disclosure.”

The fines are divided up into $12 million for Sprint, $80 million for T-Mobile (which has now merged with Sprint), more than $57 million for AT&T, and an almost $47 million for Verizon.

From the press release it becomes apparent that the FCC considers real-time location data some of the most sensitive data in a carrier’s possession. Each of the four major carriers was found to be selling its customers’ location information to “aggregators,” who then resold access to such information to third-party location-based service providers.

The investigation by the FCC was set in motion by public reports like the ones in the New York Times, Vice.com, and a letter from Sen. Ron Wyden to the FCC. All pointed out that anyone could get location information about almost any US phone if they were willing to pay an unauthorized source.

The FCC press release specifically mentions a location-finding service operated by Securus, a provider of communications services to correctional facilities, as a source that provided the possibility to track people’s location.

The US law, including section 222 of the Communications Act, requires carriers to take reasonable measures to protect certain customer information, including location information.

The wireless carriers attempted to offload their obligation to obtain customer consent onto the downstream recipients of the location information. The end result was a failure in which no valid customer consent was obtained. And even though the carriers were aware of this, they continued to sell access to location information without taking reasonable measures to protect it from unauthorized access.

As reported by Krebs on Security, one of the data aggregation firms, LocationSmart, had a free, unsecured demo of its service online that anyone could abuse to find the near-exact location of virtually any mobile phone in North America.

Spokespersons of Verizon and AT&T both indicated to BleepingComputer that they felt as if they were taking the blame for another company’s failure to obtain consent.

T-Mobile said in a statement to CNN that it discontinued the location data-sharing program over five years ago. The company wanted to make sure first that critical services like roadside assistance, fraud protection, and emergency response would not suffer any negative consequences if it did.

All three companies indicated they will appeal the order. We’ll keep you posted on any new developments.

**We don’t just report on phone security—we provide it**

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your mobile devices by downloading Malwarebytes for iOS, and Malwarebytes for Android today.

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