Cyber Savvy Tips for Data Breach Victims

You’re holding the dreaded Data Breach Notification letter right now and you’re feeling a little powerless.

Businesses get hit with ransomware, hackers get paid, rinse and repeat; but it’s your private data that gets leaked into the public, and this cycle doesn’t need to endlessly repeat.

Until businesses start taking cybersecurity seriously; and until states, as well as Congress, start passing solid legislation to protect consumers, it’s up to you to protect yourself. Here’s how:

  1. Accept the free offer for identity theft protection often included in the data breach notification.
  2. Contact the organization which sent the data breach notification and ask if there is any other private data which may have been compromised.
  3. Go to AnnualCreditReport.com and request a free copy from each of the three major consumer credit reporting companies. Insider tip: stagger your free requests across the whole year rather than all at the same time. This allows you to monitor changes over a longer period of time for a more accurate picture of your accounts.
  4. Insider tip: when setting up a school account for your children, don’t give the school your main banking account. Go to your bank and set up a separate bank account from which the school can draw lunch money, or sports equipment costs etc. This prevents hackers from accessing your main financial information should the school be targeted by cyber criminals.
  5. You may want to consider placing a fraud alert or a credit freeze on your credit card, but keep in mind that you will need to unfreeze them whenever your lenders or other companies need access to your credit files again.
  6. Your employer may offer identity theft protection services. If not, there are several organizations which offer this service at a reasonable price.
  7. 1-888-382-1222 is the DoNotCall.gov number to officially place your phone number on the Do Not Call list. Once you have become an unwilling participant in a data breach, scammers may begin targeting you. Being on this list won’t save you from every spammer and scammer call, but it will greatly reduce the chances.
  8. DMAchoice.org will reduce the marketing messages aimed at your phone, emails, and mailbox.
  9. OptOutPrescreen.com will stop the unwanted credit card offers, should someone decide to steal your physical mail.
  10. 1-888-5OPT OUT (567-8688) is another site which will stop marketers from sending you offers. Insider tip: Remember, every smartphone app you download is busily gathering up all kinds of data on you and then selling it to marketing firms and data aggregators. The less data you allow them access to, the safer your privacy will be. Another Insider tip: do a search on “data aggregators” and the number of them will blow your mind! Some of those sites have an OPT OUT feature should you discover your information in their database.
  11. Worried that your email addresses may be compromised? Look them up on Troy Hunt’s handy website at HaveIBeenPwned.com (note the spelling). Insider tip: change your passwords frequently. If you can’t keep track of them all, look for a trustworthy password manager. ConsumerVoice.org offers advice on which products are the top ranked.

As the CEO of OURweb subsidiary of Recon Secure Computing, a cybersecurity provider, I know how frustrating it can be to find a real solution to the growing problem of data breaches, and I also know that a fearful customer is never optimal. My goal is to empower you, and to equip you with the best knowledge available.

You may have been victimized, but you can take some simple and effective steps to better protect yourself.