Records Of 15 Million T-Mobile Customers Swept Up In Experian Hack

T-Mobile announced on Thursday the personal information of about 15 million customers was swept up in a hack on Experian, a vendor that processes the phone company’s credit applications.

The breach affects new applicants who required a credit check for service or a new device between Sept. 1 and Sept. 15. Experian said the hack did not affect its consumer credit database.

The hackers obtained encrypted information from the records, including Social Security Numbers, drivers’ license numbers and Passport information. The hack involved names and addresses, but bank information and payment card numbers were not swept up in the breach.

“Obviously I am incredibly angry about this data breach and we will institute a thorough review of our relationship with Experian, but right now my top concern and first focus is assisting any and all consumers affected,” wrote T-Mobile CEO John Legere in a blog post. “I take our customer and prospective customer privacy VERY seriously. This is no small issue for us.”

Since the massive breach of Target customers’ financial information in late 2013, it seems a new major hack comes to light every few weeks. From Home Depot to Anthem to the Office of Personal Management, it seems no sector is safe.

Experian said that upon discovering the hack, it notified consumers that may be affected, secured its servers, began an investigation and notified law enforcement. It also is offering consumers two years of identity resolution services.

All in all, Experian did everything right after the hack occurred. This breach just once again underscores that companies need to do more to prevent data breaches before they happen.

T-mobile and Experian both warned that if you were a customer affected by this breach, you should not provide personal information to anyone who says they are asking for it in connection with the hack. Because no financial information was impacted, affected consumers do not have to close bank accounts or credit cards. They are at an increased risk of identity theft.

At this time Experian says it does not know who is responsible, but it is cooperating with law enforcement.

LuckyTrip Lets You Find Your Next Trip In One Tap

I’m a sucker for apps that, on the surface at least, appear incredibly simple and reduce cognitive load considerably. LuckyTrip is one of those apps. Available for iOS, it lets you find a trip in just one tap.

Perhaps taking its inspiration from Google’s original ‘feeling lucky’ search engine, after setting your budget via the onscreen slider, you tap the ‘Lucky’ button and LuckyTrip presents you with three prospective trips after searching for flights, accommodations and rail travel. Don’t like any of the suggestions? Then simply tap the ‘Lucky’ button again. And again.

“For too long now the process of finding and booking a trip has been time consuming and complicated. The traditional travel sites are cluttered, with hundreds of choices that easily overwhelm you. The average user visits 7 different platforms, spending over 6 hours researching a single trip,” says LuckyTrip co-founder Tiff Burns when asked to describe the problem the app solves.

“We use the cheapest flights from Skyscanner, the best places to stay from Booking.com and unique handpicked things to do chosen by us. If you don’t like a trip, keep on tapping ‘Lucky’ to generate trips to new locations. Save trips, share them with friends and book, all on your phone,” he adds.

The result is a nicely designed and single use-case app that aims to encourage people to be “spontaneous, explore and go on new adventures,” perfect for those who like to take the odd long weekend city (or otherwise) break.

“Quite often people just go with what they already know, choosing the same tourist spots as everyone else. We think this is because of the way traditional travel companies work. They all like to ask us ‘where do you want to go?’. But what if you don’t know where to go? We think for a lot of people a much more relevant question is ‘how much do you want to spend?’ LuckyTrip searches by budget, not by location. Tell us how much you want to spend and LuckyTrip does all the hard work for you.”

Noteworthy is that Burns and his brother and co-founder Alex Burns initially tested the premise behind LuckyTrip without building a functional MVP. Instead the pair put up a one page website with the concept of the app and invited people to register their interest. However, to be added to the invite list they were required to answer a questionnaire about their travel habits.

“A few weeks later we had a huge surge of traffic, and loads of really interesting answers to our questionnaire. We used this as proof of concept, and it really helped our decisions early on,” says Burns.

Udacity Expands Services And Announces Scholarships In India

Online computer programming educator Udacity announced on Monday it would expand on the ground in India, the country where the service is growing the fastest.

Udacity’s free and nanodegree services are available worldwide, but with Monday’s announcement, the company will begin offering the service in rupees and expanding its staff in the country. Nanodegrees are credentials recognized by many companies, such as Google and Salesforce.

Courses will cost $9,800 rupees a month, which is about $50 less than the price in the United States of $200 per month.

“Udacity’s mission is to democratize education, and India is one of the world’s fastest growing economies,” said Udacity CEO Sebastian Thrun in an interview with TechCrunch.

Google and Tata Trust will each offer 500 full Android nanodegree scholarships to students in India. Google will also host a job fair in India for standout Nanodegree graduates and potential employers next year. Udacity said it is seeking to increase partnerships with more companies based in India.

Udacity’s foray into India is a logical step as the number of programmers in the country continues to surge. Currently India is home to the second largest programmer population in the world, a Udacity spokeswoman said. In general Udacity nanodegree students tend to be college graduates with some programming experience.

Thrun said Udacity plans to use the same “recipe” it has to achieve growth that it used in the United States.

“One of the big questions is can we get the same growth in India?” Thrun told TechCrunch. “We’re very optimistic we can.”