Cyberthieves Exploit Breached Passwords on Other Sites

We talk a lot about some of the bad stuff that can happen to you if your personal information is breached. Sometimes your information is at risk when you lose your mobile device, which stores everything from passwords to personal information, while other times your information is breached by a company. In the first quarter of 2014, the number of records (which contain personal information) breached by companies exceeded 176 million. That’s 176 million people whose information is at risk. Some of the major risks from data breaches include identity theft, medical identity theft, fraud or providing information / contacts to phishers to target either you or your contacts. These risks are not exhaustive, however, as 1,000 StubHub users just realized this week. Cyberthieves were able to access 1,000 StubHub customer accounts to fraudulently by tickets for events by using login and password information from other data breaches at other websites and retailers or malware on customer computers. StubHub security was not breached, but customer accounts were still compromised. If you share passwords among accounts, as many people do, you are putting all of those accounts at risk.

Protect Your Information

Data breaches are, as the news indicates, “increasingly common,” so we all have to do our own part to protect our information.

1. Use strong and unique passwords for every website (use a password manager to generate and store passwords)
2. Check your credit report every year
3. Review monthly credit card statements
4. Install security programs on all devices
5. Password protect all your devices
6. When asked for security questions, answer them with passwords instead (keep a record of the passwords as ‘Notes’ in your password manager)
7. Purchase identity theft insurance / credit monitoring service
8. Shred documents that have personal information
9. Use Absolute LoJack to remotely delete sensitive files or lock stolen devices because mobile theft increases your risk of identity theft and fraud
10. Follow these other tips to prevent identity theft