T-Mobile employees fined £73,700 after data theft

Two former T-Mobile employees have been ordered to pay a total of £73,700 in fines and confiscation costs after passing customer details on to third parties.

The pair's offences were uncovered after T-Mobile identified an issue and turned the matter over to the Information Commissioner's Office to investigate.

Names, addresses, telephone numbers and customer contract end dates were some of the details passed on to the third parties.

"Those who have regular access to thousands of customer details may think that attempts to use it for personal gain will go undetected," said information commissioner Christopher Graham.

"But this case shows there is always an audit trail, and my office will do everything in its power to uncover it," he added.

David Turley pleaded guilty to 18 offences and has been ordered to pay £45,000 in confiscation costs.

Darren Hames pleaded guilty to two offences and has been ordered to pay £28,700.

If the pair fail to pay the fines, they will be sentenced up to 18 months' jail time.

"The insider threat remains strong today. Recent Cyber-Ark research found that 44 per cent of IT staff in EMEA admitted to accessing data that was irrelevant to their jobs, and 31 per cent of those surveyed said they, or one of their colleagues, had used an admin password to get to confidential or sensitive information," said Mark Fullbrook, UK and Ireland director at security company Cyber-Ark Software.

"Data is the most valuable asset for so many organisations, so leaving it unguarded is an unnecessary and avoidable mistake," he added.

"Clearly, if companies are to mitigate this risk and avoid damaging and costly incidents, they need to manage, secure and record [data access] activities throughout the business as a matter of course."