AT&T data breach
The recent data breach at AT&T is just the latest incident where millions of people's personal information has been exposed.
of consumers have been compromised and are now in the hands of cyber criminals.
AT&T on Monday confirmed a data breach involving more than 70,000 current and former AT&T customers.
Data includes social security numbers and other personal information.
Troy Hunt, a web security consultant who also runs the website www.haveibeenpwned, says:
Data breaches are more serious than many others because of the richness of the information involved.
“Social Security numbers are a big part of identity verification,” Hunt said. “Then,
Name, phone number, address.Really this is all the ingredients of theft
unfortunately”.
AT&T acknowledged in a release Monday that the data was published on the dark web, but Hunt
I'd say it's much more accessible than that.
“We're seeing headlines that say it's on the dark web. It's not the dark web. It's the transparent web. It's
Access it anywhere with your regular browser.There are probably thousands, if not tens of thousands.
These are the people who now have all this data,” Hunt explained.
With all this information, cybercriminals will try to steal your data.
Identity of the victim. And there's not much the victim can do about it now.
“We can't change the date of birth,” Hunt said. “Changing your social security number is
It's a total nightmare, but it won't happen to 70 million people.So we have to work on
The fact is that data exists all over the world and can never be retrieved. ”
Part of the problem, Hunt said, is that most people don't take steps to protect their data.
Become a victim. And it's no exaggeration to say that everyone online is a victim of a data breach.Just not
I know that.
Therefore, it is important to take action now.
Hunt himself said his email address was included in about 30 data breaches. “I live things like this
Data breaches cannot be prevented.The only thing I can do is minimize
It affects me when I am. ”
What is that? Hunt said identity theft and fraud prevention services warn people when:
Having a credit check on their name is a good step to protect your privacy.these are
About $100 per year.
“But we also know that this is not a panacea,” Hunt cautions. “That won't happen.”
If someone knows my username and password and is trying to log in, I will definitely notify them
to my email account. ”
To protect your account when you use your email address and password to access Hunt and more.
Cybersecurity experts strongly recommend using strong, unique passwords for each individual.
Accounts, enabling multi-factor authentication, and password managers.
