T-Mobile workers sold personal data on thousands of customers to third parties who then called the individuals as their wireless contracts were due to expire, a T-Mobile UK spokesman has confirmed.

A few years ago most people wouldn't look at an event like this and make the decision to leave their - telecommunication provider, bank, etc. However, a 2007 survey from the Ponemon Institute found that over 56% of data breach related costs (just like this one) are directly related to customer loss.

Unfortunately this is the same old story of poorly secured sensitive data plus malicious insiders. Given the difficult economic times we're going more not less of this. Earlier this month I blogged about a similar event at Ford where R&D information was stolen by an insider to give to a company in Beijing China.  Stayed tuned -- there will be many more.