Data breach is a phrase which only recently came into the common lexicon of the world. The more connected the world gets the more data there is.  Your E-mail, your password are of course used to sign into thousands of websites or services. What is also potentially available is your financial records, your health records.  Imagine what bad actors can do if they get their hands on that.  They could impersonate you, steal your health information, or take money from you.

Bad Actors are always looking for new data.

What are some things you can do to help decrease your chances of a Data Breach?  Here is the news you don’t want to hear- in general you are dependent on others to protect your data, the world we live in today is one where you are not in direct day to day control of all of your data. With that said use reputable banks and hospitals as financial and health data are the most sensitive data we have.  Be aware about how to prevent Malware from impacting you, I wrote about this here in my Malware article https://ericcrichardson.com/2021/01/20/cyber-smart-the-malware-family-and-attacks/amp/  Something that you could consider is being sure you have a locking mailbox to prevent bad guys from swiping possibly sensitive mail.

There are some day to day ‘hygiene’ steps you can take to build up better defenses however, these are actually the same steps you would do if you are notified of a data breach.

• Change all your passwords, make sure you have unique passwords for different services. Look at my piece on passwords here https://ericcrichardson.com/2021/01/14/the-gist-of-passwords/amp/

• Monitor you bank statements; credit card bills etc. for any ‘strange’ activity.

• Consider putting put “fraud alerts” on your checking/saving account this will allow your banks to identify any strange patters of activity and prevent it from occurring- a real world example is your bank statement is stolen, someone uses your debit card a thousand miles from where you live. With that alert the bank will decline the transaction and notify you.
• Consider ‘locking’ credit bureau queries, this way if a nefarious actor tries to get a credit card or loan in your name, they would be prevented. The credit bureaus are Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax.  Please note that there have been data breaches even from within the credit bureaus.

The big difference between just being cautious and reacting to a breach is if you are not already doing these things, if you find out you have been impacted by a breach then you need to do all those things I mentioned above and amazingly fast. And of course, contact law enforcement if you know you have had your identity stolen due to a data breach.  Be safe out there, there are threats about.