Conservative cell carrier Patriot Mobile hit by data breach
U.S. cell carrier Patriot Mobile experienced a data breach that included subscribers’ personal information, including full names, email addresses, home ZIP codes and account PINs, TechCrunch has learned.
Patriot Mobile, which reportedly has fewer than 100,000 subscribers, bills itself as “America’s only Christian conservative wireless provider and our mission is to passionately defend our God-given Constitutional rights and freedoms while glorifying God.”
On its website, the cell carrier displays photos of former Fox News host Glenn Beck, and former Trump administration officials Sebastian Gorka and Steve Bannon. The company has recently started to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of conservative and pro-Christian candidates and causes in Texas.
A hacker who claimed responsibility for the breach provided TechCrunch with a sample of data stolen from Patriot Mobile. TechCrunch verified that the sample of data contains authentic customer data, in part because an apparent bug on Patriot Mobile's public website is also leaking some of the same personal information.
A Patriot Mobile spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment by TechCrunch.
Patriot Mobile is a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), which means the company doesn’t own its network infrastructure but instead leases access from AT&T and T-Mobile.
News of the data breach at Patriot Mobile comes a month after AT&T, the largest cell phone provider in the country, confirmed a large theft of customers' personal and account information from several years prior. As a consequence of this breach, AT&T reset the account passcodes of millions of customers after TechCrunch informed the company that the leaked data contained encrypted passcodes that were easy to decrypt, and could be used to break into customers’ accounts.
