In late 2023, the telecom giant rolled out over 200,000 FIDO2 YubiKeys to its workforce including employees, vendors and authorised retail partners.
As a result, the move replaces traditional password-based systems with device-bound passkeys, improving the security of the telecom giant’s sensitive data.
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The company’s adoption of modern authentication methods comes amid rising cyber threats, particularly phishing attacks that exploit legacy multi-factor authentication (MFA) systems such as passwords and one-time passwords (OTPs).
This follows reports of T-Mobile reporting a a significant cyber attack allegedly carried out by Chinese state-sponsored hackers, in November last year.
The breach was disclosed on 16 November, and according to initial investigations, the attackers gained unauthorised access to the company’s systems, exposing sensitive customer data and internal communications.
T-Mobile, chief security officer, Jeff Simon, said: “T-Mobile took a critical step forward to further reduce credential phishing by deploying the stronger, device-bound passkey solution that Yubico offers.
“Once we had our YubiKeys in hand we were able to get them up and running across the company in less than three months, and we’ve seen the positive results after just one year of having them.
“That progress is even more important in today’s environment where bad actors continue to wage sophisticated campaigns to attempt to infiltrate telecommunication networks. YubiKeys continue to be an important element of how we approach cyber protection.”
Yubico president and COO, Jerrod Chong, said: “AI and the sophistication of bad actors continue to evolve, putting enterprises and their personnel at higher risk than ever before. To protect against phishing attacks, companies need to act now to adopt and implement hardware-based security keys, which are the strongest multi-factor authentication available.
“T-Mobile’s deployment of YubiKeys is a great example of how enterprises committed to cybersecurity can rapidly and effectively deploy YubiKeys to reduce phishing.”
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