Epsilon, the world’s largest permission-based email marketing company, reported an unauthorized entry to its email database on March 30. The company, which sends more than 40 billion emails a year, has assured its clients that the hacked information is limited to names and email addresses. Epsilon has warned customers not to respond to fraudulent emails asking for account information. The hackers did not get any information regarding Social Security or credit card numbers. Financial institutions affected include Barclays Bank, Capital One Financial Corp., Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and U.S. Bancorp. The parent companies of Best Buy, Ethan Allen furniture stores, the Kroger grocery chain, the Home Shopping Network and Walgreens drugstores issued similar warnings, as did the Hilton and Marriott hotel chains.
Phishing' scams are the number one concern from this breach. Hackers could send fake emails pretending to be your bank, pharmacy, hotel or other business that were customers of Epsilon. The email will look real and will be convincing as attackers have the customer's name and the company information that they did business with. The email could ask unsuspecting users to click on a link which can ask for credit card numbers, run malware, install spyware or carry out other attacks.
Epsilon posted a press release two days later after the breach happened on March 30. The breach is currently under the investigation of the U.S. Secret Service, which asks all Epsilon customers who are suspicious about any fraudulent emails to report to phishing-report@us.cert.gov.
http://www.dailyrosetta.com/epsilon-data-breach-under-investigation/12190.html
It's scary to think that incidents ike this happen so often. I know I try to make sure not to open anything from a sender I don't know, but when someone has hacked into a company you expect to see emails from it's hard to protect yourself. I guess the best way to stay safe is to not click on any of the links but to go to the websites directly if there is any issue.
ReplyDeleteI would do the same. I do not open email from the sources I do not trust. However, according to James Lewis, Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, about 4 percent of the people will open it and 1 percent will actuallly fill it out. So out of 1 million people, one thousand people will fill out a form!
ReplyDeleteTo follow up on this, Sony's online Playstation website was breached and Sony has said that 70 million users information was stolen. I understand that in cases like these the users whose information was stolen were aware of the risks of providing this information in the first place, but is there any legal liability on the part of the companies? It seems like you have to be doing something wrong to have this large of a security breach. If these types of things keep happening, maybe it is a sign that companies are not taking information security as seriously as they should.
ReplyDeleteIt is a good point. After this class I feel like everytime I am on computer somebody watching me. It is pretty scary. I was thinking to upgrade my cell phone to I-phone, but not sure about this move anymore. Just don't feel safe. The same with the banks, any online purchases. How can I be sure that nobody would stole my credit card , SS info?
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