Protecting Yourself From Data Breaches

There have been a number of high-profile breaches recently including:

Marriott International announced a breach of their Starwood Guest Reservation Database has exposed personal information of up to 500 million customers. The hackers accessed names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, passport numbers, dates of birth, gender, loyalty program account information, and reservation information. For some, they also stole encrypted payment card numbers and expiration dates. The breach began in 2014 and anyone who made a reservation at a Starwood property on or before September 10, 2018 could be affected. For more information, please visit https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2018/12/marriott-data-breach.

Question-and-answer website Quora announced hackers gained access to the personal data of as many as 100 million of its users.  The intrusion, discovered on November 30, includes users’ names, email addresses, IP addresses, user IDs, encrypted passwords, account settings, personalization data, public actions, and content such as questions, answers, comments, blog posts and upvotes.  Although it’s 1/5 of Marriott’s exposure, the issue is compounded by the number of users who might have accessed Quora via Facebook or Google, further risking those credentials. For more information, visit https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2018/12/04/quora-says-data-breach-may-affect-100-million-its-q-site/2200175002/.

So, how do you protect against fraudsters and future compromises?

• Scrutinize emails, phone calls, and texts from unknown sources, especially those requiring you to respond or complete an action.
• Monitor your financial activity daily.  We offer Personal Finance Manager where you can monitor your bank accounts, credit cards, loans etc. from one screen-even if they are with another provider.
• Enable multi-factor authentication for accessing your data, if available.
• Sign up for the offered monitoring service by Marriott.
• If you were notified by Marriott that you may have been compromised, consider placing a fraud alert or credit freeze with the three credit reporting agencies to alert credit card companies and others extending credit that you may have been the victim of fraud and identity theft.
• Change your passwords across your accounts, especially if they’re similar to the compromised passwords.  Remember, the longer a password, the more difficult it is to compromise quickly.   

As always, please do not provide any of your information to an unsolicited caller. We will never call and ask you to share your Credit Card Verification (CCV) code, your credit or debit card number, or the expiration date on your card. If you ever suspect fraudulent activity on your account, please do not hesitate to call your local banker, stop by a convenient banking center location, or call our Client Services & Solutions team at 877.877.0395.