Data breaches have become an all-too-common feature of life today and they pose a significant threat to all of us because regardless of how careful we are at protecting our personal data, we are only as secure as the companies and governmental agencies that hold our information. Last year there were 3,352 major data breaches affecting more than 278 million people in the United States.  It is not a matter of if you will become a victim of a data breach, but when.  Recently the popular restaurant chain Chick-fil-A alerted customers in ten states that it’s loyalty accounts were victimized by a data breach that compromised customers’ names, email addresses, the last four digits of payment card numbers and other personal information.  This information can readily be leveraged by criminals for scams and identity theft.

It is important to note that Chick -fil-A itself did not have its systems breached.  Instead this data breach was caused by what is referred to as credential stuffing which occurs when hackers use passwords that have been compromised in previous data breaches and sold on the Dark Web, that part of the Internet where criminals buy and sell goods and services.  In this case the victims of the data breach bear much of the responsibility for their own plight because they used the same passwords for multiple accounts and neglected to use dual factor authentication.

TIPS

The lesson of this particular data breach is clear.  Never use the same password for multiple accounts because as illustrated through this data breach, if your password is compromised in a data breach at one account, it puts all of your accounts into jeopardy.  Additionally, since passwords are often compromised, it is always a good idea to use dual factor authentication on all of your accounts whenever available

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