You do not have to fall for a scam for your information to be stolen.
Over 40 data beaches have been ranked among the worst this year and the list is growing.
- 1/11/21 – Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn
- 2/18/21 – Kroger
- 2/26/21 – T-Mobile
- 3/3/21 – Microsoft Exchange
- 3/23/21 – Hobby Lobby
- 4/3/21 – Facebook again
- 6/21/21 – CVS Health
- And the list goes on
Your personal information could be stolen from the company’s database once a data breach has occurred. Password, email address, physical address, credit card information, and your personally identifiable information (PII) are all at risk. It depends on what information you have stored in the company’s database. Your stolen credentials could end up being sold on the darknet[MOU1] .
There are tools to find out if your email address and/or phone have been in a data breach and what data was stolen. One of the tools is, “Have I Been Pwned” https://haveibeenpwned.com/, which shows detail data breaches from your email address found in the search.
Enter in your email address and click on pwned.
It will come back with how many data breaches it found and list them for your review.
You can also check if your password(s) have been found in a data breach by clicking on the “Passwords” tab on the website.
If you find your password(s) in a data breach you need to change them as soon as possible.
There are services that will monitor and protect against identity theft. They will alert you when your PII is found on the darknet.
- LifeLock
- Identity Guard
- Identity Defense
- ID Shield
Here is more information on why you need a monitoring service — https://credit.org/blog/credit-monitoring-what-it-is-and-why-you-should-have-it/.
https://haveibeenpwned.com/ – has the most detail about the data breach
David H. Coull
Senior Systems Administrator
210-805-0171
