This may have effected some of you. Data leak.

[3LUE]

This is pretty scary. It may be the largest data leak/hack ever. Not sure where to post this so I posted it here. It is truly something many of you may need to read. 

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/mother-data-breaches-26-billion-173012707.html

Edited January 29 by 3LUE

[USMC2145]

Yup, my bank sent me an email and text today warning me about this. They told me it would be smart to change all my passwords. I am in the process of doing so.

[Snargfargle]

I don't subscribe to any "social media" other than this forum. I checked to see if my e-mail had been involved in a leak and found it associated with a data breach in a long-defunct tech support forum and a genealogy website. However, neither of these had any info about me other than the free e-mail address I used to log onto them. My phone number isn't listed in any leaked databases at all, which isn't hard to understand why as I'm one of the 2% of Americans who only used a landline internet service, a dial-up VDSL connection, and has no cell phone. And even that phone and internet are not even listed under my name and won't be as long as the phone company doesn't care who is paying the bills.

Edited January 29 by Snargfargle

[SeaQuest]

3 hours ago, 3LUE said:

This is pretty scary. It may be the largest data leak/hack ever. Not sure where to post this so I posted it here. It is truly something many of you may need to read. 

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/mother-data-breaches-26-billion-173012707.html

 

3 hours ago, USMC2145 said:

Yup, my bank sent me an email and text today warning me about this. They told me it would be smart to change all my passwords. I am in the process of doing so.

 

3 hours ago, Snargfargle said:

I don't subscribe to any "social media" other than this forum. I checked to see if my e-mail had been involved in a leak and found it associated with a data breach in a long-defunct tech support forum and a genealogy website. However, neither of these had any info about me other than the free e-mail address I used to log onto them. My phone number isn't listed in any leaked databases at all, which isn't hard to understand why as I'm one of the 2% of Americans who only used a landline internet service, a dial-up VDSL connection, and has no cell phone. And even that phone and internet are not even listed under my name and won't be as long as the phone company doesn't care who is paying the bills.

Internet can be such a double edged sword. I saw this on the noews today. Had not heard anything from my bank or other sources, but just to be safe I changed all important passwords. 

[meatgrindr]

   Here's how I see it:

1)  Our government and financial sector leaders are powerless to stop this, they have no clue.

2)  Our           "         and                      "                  are complicit and know they have a stranglehold on the dumbed down, drug induced populace.

 

     The answer to both is to install better leadership, preferably by peaceful means.  Check out the Oregon DMV hack, everybody in the state with an ID got hacked.  Check out the Washington unemployment division hack of almost 700 million dollars, burned by basically the Nigerian Prince scheme, stolen covid relief funds.

[Klebs]

As a sole proprietor business in the 1990s I noted a government agency using my social security number as my identification number.  That identification number went to every client I dealt with in the form of benefit statements.  That was well before identification theft became a major issue.  To avoid having my social security number provided to my clients, I obtained an E.I.N. (employer identification number) and started using that number - even though I did not have an employee at the time.  That strategy was successful for 30+ years.  And since that time, I have been hyper-vigilant about my identifying information.

 

Fast forward to 2020s.  Despite my best efforts, I have had fraudulent bank accounts set up in my name in another state.  I suspect the accounts would have been used to defraud the U.S. government by submitting fraudulent business claims in my name because it was a Florida bank and that is a hotbed for healthcare fraud.  The accounts were active and ready to use when I was lucky enough to open what I thought was junk mail and discovered a bank account welcome letter.  I still do not know why I opened that letter.  I researched the letter and found it to be genuine.  I customarily throw out junk mail unopened.  Who knows which breach my social security number was obtained from.  Perhaps from a credit rating agency which was hacked and offered me as compensation a measly couple of years of free credit monitoring (no thanks, what do I do with the rest of my life when the monitoring expires?).  Perhaps an insurance company, or who knows.

 

My adult children already have had their full identifying information hacked through department of defense, insurance company, credit monitoring agencies.

 

Bottom line, the hack you are referring to is just another skirmish in a war which is already lost.  Your only safety is in the massive volume of hacked data which significantly reduces the likelihood of anyone ever impersonating you.  Unless you are a person of note, which will get you focused.

 

Suggestions:

1.  Protecting your social security number - it is the one number which is relatively difficult to acquire.  Example, does your healthcare provider or hospital need your social security number???  They commonly ask for it, and can even decline to care for you on non-emergent basis if you refuse to provide it.  I suspect they want the number to use if they need to go after you for unpaid bills.  Anyway, I have a 9 digit number I made up which I provide to them.  I use same fictitious number for everything except true financial and tax needs.  They are happy to have the 9 digit number filled in, and I am happy to have protected my real number.

2.  Most Important:  You can disable access to your credit information by setting up accounts in all 3 credit rating agencies, the 4th credit rating company set up by the phone companies for use in approving phone / wireless accounts.  You must then toggle access on for any applications you make.  But no accounts will be set up in your name without the institution being able to successfully query a credit rating type agency.  That is how I have had to live.

3.  Password protection.  That is a tough one if your email is used to access social media accounts.  Better to have a separate and discrete username and password for each social media site.  If they store your email and email password, you are asking for trouble.  No matter what encryption they claim to use.

 

Regards,

Klebs

[Snargfargle]

10 minutes ago, Klebs said:

As a sole proprietor business in the 1990s I noted a government agency using my social security number as my identification number.

My state used to use your Social Security number for your driver's license number and a university I attended also used is as your student ID number. Simpler times...

Edited January 31 by Snargfargle

[Snargfargle]

Speaking if ID numbers, the university I went to for my Bachelors also had a medical center, which I'd actually attended first to get a paramedic certification. I, therefore, had a medical center student ID number. Back then, enrollment wasn't computerized yet so students had to stand in long lines waiting to enroll. That is, except for me. The enrollment lines were organized by blocks of student ID numbers and, since few students came back and attended the main university after attending the medical center, hardly anyone was ever in the line for students with medical center ID numbers.

[CFagan_1987]

Is there a list of the impacted companies?

[USMC2145]

2 hours ago, CFagan_1987 said:

Is there a list of the impacted companies?

 

Here are most of the companies that had data leaked. 

 

Edited January 31 by USMC2145

[Otago_F111]

^^^^  nothing I am apart of. Facebook for family and Telegram for Ukraine war updates. thats me.

[clammboy]

6 hours ago, Snargfargle said:

My state used to use your Social Security number for your driver's license number and a university I attended also used is as your student ID number. Simpler times...

Back in 1992 my Hawaii drivers license had my social security number on it in big numbers on the front. It was also my drivers license number lol. 

[Klebs]

That reminds me.

When I was in college in late 1970s - early 1980s, and test scores or final grades were posted, the students would find them out by going to the university office related to the course and looking up your social security number from the list posted in the hallway outside the office.

The actual tests were in a pile adjacent to the posted test scores, and students would retrieve their test papers.

Some students who were "hypervigilent" would use the test papers to reference people's social security numbers so as to track their competition's grades going forward.  Not for identity theft, just cutthroat academic competition.  I remember once when a classmate informed me how high my test score ranked across the entire class for a particular course.

As was mentioned before by Snargfargle ................ "simpler times".