According to T-Mobile’s 2023 Annual Report they had $8.3 Billion in Net Income in 2023. A $31.5 Million dollar settlement isn’t even a rounding error. Unless and until these fines start actually cutting into profits, in a significant way, businesses aren’t going to care about cybersecurity.

We really need to take a page from the EU’s GDPR and start assessing these fines as a percentage of global annual revenue. Quit dicking around and make the fines high enough that companies make the secure choice, rather than the cheap choice, because the ROI for the cheap choice includes a high risk of “fuck you” level fines.