Hacker Claims Responsibility for East Wenatchee T-Mobile Attack that Exposed Info of More Than 50 Million People

An American man now living in Turkey claims to be the hacker who breached the T-Mobile data center in East Wenatchee.

The Wall Street Journal reports 21-year-old John Binns says he used an unprotected router to expose sensitive information of more than 50 million people. 

The Journal reports Binns performed the hack in early August to gain attention, and called the T-Mobile security system "awful".

T-Mobile apologized to customers Friday for the breach at the East Wenatchee access point that granted Binns entry to over 100 of the company’s servers.

The Journal reports Binns declined to say whether he sold any of the stolen data or whether he was paid to breach T-Mobile.

T-Mobile said it repaired the security hole that enabled the breach.

Binns moved to Turkey with his mother three years ago after growing up in northern Virginia.

The Journal reports Binns said he wanted to draw attention to being harassed by the U.S. government, saying he was kidnapped in Germany and put into a fake mental hospital.

According to the Journal, Binns filed a lawsuit last year against the Central Intelligence Agency, the FBI and other federal agencies in an attempt to get fulfillment of his records request for information about FBI investigations of hacker attacks.

The case is still active in The U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia. The agencies have denied Binns' accusations.