T-Mobile hack: “their security is awful” says hacker

John Binns, a 21-year-old American, has been revealed to be the hacker behind the T-Mobile hack. The operator recently confirmed that the data of more than 50 million customers was stolen from its servers.

T-Mobile hacker speaks out publicly

The hacker spoke with the Wall Street Journal, by not hiding his identity. He explains that he analyzed the known addresses of T-Mobile to try to find weak points. A publicly accessible tool (whose name is withheld) found what he was looking for. The young man thus discovered a router which was not protected. This discovery took place in July.

Once this unprotected router was discovered, John Binns was able to infiltrate a T-Mobile data center in Washington. He admits that he was in a panic at first because he knew very well that his access allowed him to consult a lot of files that were not normally accessible. But he continued. It took him about a week to search the operator’s servers, sort the data and download it. This took place on August 4th. On August 13, T-Mobile received information about an intrusion on its network. A few days later, the operator spoke publicly and informed his customers.

Security that leaves much to be desired

“Their security is awful”, estimates the hacker while speaking of T-Mobile. Why this hacking, anyway? “Making noise was a goal”, the 21-year-old said. He also wanted to attract attention. He claims to have been the victim of an illegal kidnapping which allegedly took him to a bogus psychiatric hospital in Germany. “I have no reason to make up a fake kidnapping story and I hope someone within the FBI will disclose information about it”, did he declare.

John Binns, who grew up in the US but has lived in Turkey for three years, didn’t want to say if he had sold T-Mobile customer data, nor does he say if he had any accomplices. . For its part, the Seattle FBI office is investigating this hack.