Remember that T-Mobile breach we mentioned a few days ago? Well, what do you know, its consequences extend beyond the Magenta carrier.
Google Fi relies on three separate carriers — T-Mobile, Sprint, and U.S. Cellular — to deliver its service. This helps users have the best signal as they are always placed on the best service tower based on their location and such.
With one of the carriers being affected by the breach, so have Google Fi customers. The good news is that NO personally identifiable information was stolen. That would include details like your name, email address, credit or debit card information, government ID, and password.
Instead, the hackers have nabbed the data plan information, phone and SIM card serial numbers, and account status (active or inactive). While it’s not ideal, it is far from catastrophe — though we must warn you that some of these details could be used to target users for phishing attempts via phone calls and email campaigns.
“Our incident response team undertook an investigation and determined that unauthorized access occurred and have worked with our primary network provider to identify and implement measures to secure the data on that third party system and notify everyone potentially impacted,” Google Fi wrote in an email to customers. “There was no access to Google’s systems or any systems overseen by Google.”
The company added that the Google Fi service continues to work as usual and “was not interrupted by this issue.”
However, Google has not stated whether all or just a handful of Fi subscribers were affected, but it is clear that none of its servers have been touched by the bad actors. To that end, the search giant says that “no action is required by you at this time.” So, yes – you can continue using Google Fi like nothing has happened. Just watch out for any funny texts and emails, ok?