“Hackers have exposed the personal information of 110 million Americans — roughly half of the nation’s adults — in the last 12 months alone,” Jose Pagliery reports for CNNMoney.
“That massive number, tallied for CNNMoney by Ponemon Institute researchers, is made even more mind-boggling by the amount of hacked accounts: up to 432 million,” Pagliery reports. “The damage is real. Each record typically includes personal information, such as your name, debit or credit card, email, phone number, birthday, password, security questions and physical address.”
“It’s enough to get hunted down by an abusive ex-spouse. It makes you an easier target for scams. And even if only basic information about you is stolen, that can easily be paired with stolen credit card data, empowering impostors,” Pagliery reports. “‘It’s becoming more acute,’ said Larry Ponemon, head of the Ponemon Institute. ‘If you’re not a data breach victim, you’re not paying attention.’ So, get accustomed to the hack of the month. In April, that was AOL. In May, it was eBay. Who knows what June will bring?”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote earlier today, one major component to the problem is that some people use one password for everything they do online and, when one thing gets compromised (eBay, for example), everything else is also accessible to criminals.
Use unique passwords and Apple’s Keychain Access and iCloud Keychain to create and manage them. When used properly, it works like a dream.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
Related article:
Apple: iCloud not compromised in Apple ID ransom scheme – May 28, 2014
