Egress comments on T-Mobile breach

In response to the latest T-Mobile data breach, Tony Pepper, CEO of Egress (www.egress.com) says, “It is very concerning that T-Mobile has suffered yet another data breach after an attack on its email vendor led to hackers gaining unauthorised access to employee accounts, some of which contained account information for its customers and staff.  This should serve as a timely reminder to any company that the handling, processing and storing of customer data should be its number one priority – even when at rest in third-party systems.”

“Email is a primary vector for data breaches.  Traditionally, security has been the pay-off when it comes to the business benefits of efficiency and productivity as employees use email to communicate.  But we now operate in an exciting time where technologies like contextual machine learning can make email safe without railroading productivity – helping to prevent common breaches like misdirected emails and also ensuring the right level of encryption is applied to sensitive data.  In this case specifically, encryption at rest could have been used to help prevent hackers accessing the data stored in these email accounts,” says Pepper.