Advanced Cyber Security

Advanced Cyber Security is a feature that proactively monitors, screens, and blocks threats and malicious activities on your home network and devices.

What's included

  • Safe Browsing blocks malicious sites that put you at risk for viruses, malware, and ransomware.
  • Malicious traffic protection helps prevent bad actors from accessing connected devices, or your devices from connecting to malicious sites/servers, and automatically blocks that network traffic and cut off access.
  • Anomaly Detection automatically blocks network traffic and cuts off access, deterring cybercriminals from accessing your IoT devices such as security cameras.
  • Botnet prevention provides a second layer of protection against cybercriminals from utilizing your devices, which could slow down your home network.
  • Customer has the ability to turn on/off from within T-Life.
  • The feature will not be available until the rate plan change completes. See Known Issue below. 

Eligibility

  • Refer to the plan pages to verify eligibility: Home Internet Plans or Small Business Internet Plans.
  • Customers must be using a T-Mobile 5G Gateway G4AR/G4SE or G5AR/G5SE, Sagemcom FAST 5688W, Arcadyan KVD21, and must be on the most current firmware version. 

Set up

Customers control and manage their Advanced Cyber Security feature via the T-Life app.

  • The feature is called Cyber Security within the T-Life app.
  • Customers should set up their gateway first via the T-Life app before accessing.
  • Customers do not have to log-in with their TMOID, but using the TMOID is the preferred method for accessing this feature.
  • If a customer is upgrading to Amplified or All-In, they may need to log out and log back into T-Life to see the feature.

  1. Access T-Life > Locate > My Life > select gateway.
    • Customers must use T-Life to trigger provisioning of Advanced Cyber Security.
    • If customer never signs into T-Life with their TMOID after purchasing or upgrading to a plan that includes Advanced Cyber Security, the features will not be enabled.
  2. Log-in with T-Mobile ID is required to utilize the Security feature. If customers choose Manage internet without T-Mobile ID, the Security feature will not be active, and will not be visible in T-Life.
  3. Follow the prompts to complete the software update if gateway firmware update is required.
  4. Go to the Cyber Security tab at the top.
  5. Select Let's Go where it says Network Security is Here for first time set up only.

 

Sequence of screens that will display:

  • Security Status: Green = Advanced Cyber Security is actively protecting
  • Threats: Will display number of Threats Blocked (volume) and Sites Blocked in last 30 days
    • Select Sites Blocked or Threats Blocked to display, by date, the device the threat was detected on, and general description of the threat.
    • If a device hasn't been connected to the network in the last 7 days, the user will not be able to see the name of the device or threats in the threat history.
  • Deep Dive: Option to learn more about the threat types and/or more about Advanced Cyber Security

Advise customer: Unblocking a URL with detected threats creates risks for you.

  1. Go to the Cyber Security tab > select Threats blocked or Sites blocked.
  2. Select a Safe browsing threat to view its Threat details page.
  3. Select Unblock for 1 hour at bottom of screen.
  4. Screen will say “This site will be blocked again at XX:XX time." (60 minutes from unblock). For example, if the customer selects unblock at 10:30am, T-Life will show "This site will be blocked again at 11:30am".

Advise customer: Disabling the feature stops blocks for threats and malicious activities on your home network and devices, potentially leaving your devices at risk.

  1. Go to the More tab.
  2. Under settings, Enable Advanced Security will show as enabled.
    • Toggle to Off and Security tab will now show Security is disabled.
    • Toggle to On and Security tab will show Security is enabled.

  1. Go to Device Details.
  2. Select device.
  3. General Info field is now customizable (no special characters).
  4. Enter the name and select Save.
  5. Under Gateway details, the connected device list will now display the customer name if assigned.

Troubleshooting

If customers have issues accessing a specific website or want to understand if it is our feature blocking the website, refer to the Atlas Fix Flow titled Home Internet Can't Reach Specific URL.

  1. Navigate to Troubleshooting > Devices in Atlas.
  2. Launch the T-Mobile Wi-Fi Internet Tool (Wi-FiT).
  3. Navigate to the Security tab.
  4. Input the URL provided by the customer and select Check Status.
  5. Review one of three responses that display:
Advanced Cyber Security is blocking this URL
  • Unblocking a URL with detected threats creates a risk to the customer.
  • If they would like to proceed, instruct the customer to unblock the URL using their T-Life app.
  • This will allow the URL to remain unblocked for one hour.
Advanced Cyber Security is not blocking this URL
  • T-Mobile is not blocking this site. If a customer is having trouble accessing this URL, it is not due to Advanced Cyber Security.
  • Continue to troubleshoot using Atlas Fix Flow: Home Internet Can't Reach Specific URL.
This URL needs to be analyzed
  • This URL needs to be analyzed.
  • Confirm the website is spelled correctly.
  • Wait a few seconds and then select Check Status again.

Known issues

Open

  1. If a user disables Security in T-Life and then re-enables it, the threat history in T-Life is completely cleared out. 
    • User impact: New threats will be tracked correctly.  
    • Status: This is as designed but T-Mobile will pursue a solution  
  2. Sometimes the wrong error messages can/will appear in T-Life when attempting to provision Security on unsupported gateways. For example, if a user is trying to set up Security on an Arcadyan/ Sagemcom/ Nokia/ Askey Gateway, they may see a screen telling them to wait 5-10 minutes for the firmware to update. However, the firmware will never update because Security is not enabled on these gateways.
  3. Customer who initiates TMOID login Intelligent First Time Setup in T-Life for a new gateway that hasn’t been plugged in yet will be stuck on “Software update in progress” screen.
    • Customer should exit and re-enter HSI portion of app. Go to Home > refresh app > Home Internet Overview.
    • Another option is to close app > relaunch > Home Internet and view software update in progress screen (which may say 24 hours or 10 minutes). Expect another delay of up to 10 minutes (sometimes a little bit longer) after the app refresh and the gateway reboot for the gateway to run all of its necessary checks.

 

Resolved

  1. Users see onboarding flow for Advanced Security every time they log in to T-Life.
    • User impact: None, but it is annoying. In the extreme case, users might believe that Security wasn’t enabled prior to signing in. 
    • Status: TBD with future T-Life release.
  2. If a user has disabled Security in T-Life, it still shows as enabled in Wi-Fit (incorrectly) while showing as disabled (correctly) in T-Life.
    • User impact: Users who call into Care while Security is disabled may be told erroneously that Security is enabled for their device and cause customer confusion.  
    • Status: Product to pursue a fix date TBD.
  3. Care does not have visibility to when customer has disabled (turned off) the feature. Until this issue is resolved, Wi-Fit will show it as ‘on’. For customers who call to ask if Advanced Cyber Security is blocking a URL:  
    • Have them go into T-Life to check the status of Advanced Security (On or Off).
    • If it's Off, Advanced Cyber Security is not actively blocking any URL.
    • If it's On, follow steps above.
  4. Customers who were eligible for Advanced Cyber Security based on rate plan and downgrade to an ineligible plan will still have access to Security.
    • The Advanced Cyber Security features will continue to work until they login to T-Life with TMOID again. 
    • Solution: Q1 2025 update will remove need for customers to trigger provisioning of Advanced Cyber Security through T-Life, and will also deprovision Advanced Cyber Security for customers who are no longer entitled to it.
  5. If a new user hasn’t plugged in their gateway, but logs into T-Life with their TMOID, they won’t see the Home Internet widget on the Home tab. Customer should close the app, plug in their gateway, wait 5-10 minutes, and relaunch T-Life.
  6. If user has not plugged in gateway, T-Life tells them that there are no internet lines on the account when they tap on the Home Internet widget. Customer should close the app, plug in their gateway, wait 5-10 minutes, and relaunch T-Life.