5 August 2019
Security experts say data breaches will continue to happen as cyber criminals and state-backed hackers target the protected information held by companies and government agencies.
Such attacks leave consumers vulnerable to fraud and identity theft. Here are some steps you can take to assess the severity of the breach and better secure yourself:
What was compromised?
Breaches often cover a wide range of data. Information which is already publicly available, such as your name or email address, is seen as less of a concern.
Other details, however, can be extremely sensitive and need to remain private. For example, full credit card numbers, which could be used to make fraudulent purchases in your name, or passwords for your online accounts.
Even if stolen, the data may still be protected by encryption. Hacks by foreign governments are also usually seen as less dangerous for general consumers compared to data thefts by financially-motivated criminal gangs because most spy agencies do not sell or trade such information.
Much of the information stolen from Capital One was already public, including names and addresses of over 100 million people in the United States and Canada. But the breach also included 140,000 Social Security numbers which could be used to steal people's identities.
To assess the severity of the breach, try and determine what information was compromised and in what format it was stolen.
Am I affected?
Try ..
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