Following a report that its consumer-facing website may have been serving up malware to visitors, Equifax — the credit bureau that seems intent on finding every way possible to ruin your day — has pulled some of its web pages offline. [More]
data breaches
Millions Of Credit Card Numbers May Have Been Stolen In Sonic Drive-In Breach
By 9.26.17
It’s a day of the week ending in “y,” which can only mean one thing: Another national company’s payment system has been compromised. This time, it’s the Sonic Drive-In fast food chain, where potentially millions of credit card numbers may have been stolen. [More]
Equifax Already Being Sued Over Massive Breach; Company Criticized For Amateurish Response To Theft
By 9.8.17
Within hours of Equifax — one of the nation’s three major credit bureaus — confirming that the records of some 143 million people had been compromised in a data breach, the company now faces a lawsuit accusing it of failing to protect its stockpile of sensitive consumer information. Meanwhile, some critics are saying that Equifax’s response to the breach may be causing more harm than good. [More]
Equifax Announces Data Breach Affecting 143 Million Customers
By 9.7.17
Credit reporting agencies have access to basically all of our most sensitive financial information, and we pretty much all have our records collected and collated by them whether we want to or not. So that makes it a particularly big problem when one of the big three credit agencies in the country has to announce a data breach affecting all its customers, because that basically means all of us… and this one is bad. [More]
Can You Sue Your Insurance Company Over A Data Breach If Your Info Hasn’t Been Used By ID Thieves?
By 8.1.17
With data breaches now a daily occurrence for businesses large and small, there’s a good chance that at least some of your information has been compromised by cybercriminals at some point. But should you be able to sue a company for failing to keep your data safe when the stolen information hasn’t (yet) been misused? [More]
Google Wiping Private Medical Records From Search Results
By 6.23.17
If the thought of a stranger accessing your medical history online gives you the creeps, you’re not alone: In an effort to tamp down on the spread of such private information, Google has started wiping private medical records from its search results. [More]
Man Admits He Helped Steal 94,000 Credit, Debit Card Numbers From Michaels Stores
By 6.20.17
If you can stretch your memory all the way back to the spring of 2011, before data breaches seemed commonplace, perhaps you will recall when Michaels warned customers that PIN pad information at some of its stores might have been exposed. Now, a California man has admitted his role in a conspiracy to swipe 94,000 credit and debit card numbers from customers at around 80 Michaels stores. [More]
New Home Depot Data Leak Exposes Gap In Consumer Privacy Protection
By 4.27.17 — Updated: 4.28.17
Recently, Consumerist received an anonymous tip pointing to an internet address that hosted digital images of bathtubs, garage doors, kitchen countertops, contractors at work on various projects, and customers picking out and paying for products in a home-center store. The site also hosted 13 Excel spreadsheets of customer records, including the full names, phone numbers, mailing addresses and email addresses of approximately 8,000 people, as well as other information chronicling the apparent installation complaints of each customer. [More]
GameStop May Be The Latest Loser In Data Breach Roulette
By 4.7.17
Add a new certainty to the old pair of “death and taxes”: data breaches. GameStop may be the latest retailer to face this inevitability, with a new report indicating that customer data has been stolen from its website. [More]
Verizon Revises Deal To Buy Yahoo At $350M Discount
By 2.21.17
If you found out after you got engaged that your soon-to-be better half had done something that made you question the impending union, what would you do — Cancel the wedding? Move the reception from the country club to your cousin’s backyard? If you’re Verizon and your betrothed is the data-breached Yahoo, you ask for a $350 million discount. [More]
Yahoo Warns Users Their Email Accounts May Have Been Hacked – Yes, Again
By 2.15.17 — Updated: 2.17.17
On the same day as a report that says Verizon is renegotiating its offer to buy Yahoo at a $250 million discount, the internet company — for the third time in less than six months — is warning users that there’s potential their email accounts may have been hacked. [More]
Toys ‘R’ Us Says Rewards Accounts Being Attacked Using Data Stolen Elsewhere
By 2.6.17 — Updated: 2.7.17
Here’s another example of why you should take experts’ advice when they say not to use the same password on multiple sites: Hackers have been apparently been attempting to breach accounts of Toys ‘R’ Us rewards program members using data they got from other hacks. [More]
Verizon Executive: Company Still Doesn’t Know If It’ll Go Through With Yahoo Deal
By 1.6.17
It’s been a few months of “will-they-won’t-they?” with everyone (okay, some people) wondering whether or not Verizon will go through with the $4.8 billion deal to buy Yahoo after not one, but two massive email breaches. Now, a Verizon executive is admitting that the company isn’t sure what’s going to happen. [More]
Will Massive Data Breaches Lead Verizon To Dump Yahoo?
By 12.28.16
While Yahoo has been grabbing headlines lately for its most recent data breach — one that affected more than one billion users — what about that other big story involving Yahoo, the one where Verizon Communications was preparing to buy the company’s internet business? [More]
Ashley Madison’s Penalty For Exposing Details On 36 Million Users? About $.04 Per Person
By 12.14.16
In 2015, a major data breach at AshleyMadison.com — the dating site targeted at cheaters — exposed information for some 36 million accounts. The company has now entered into a deal that settles federal and state charges that Ashley Madison: misled users about data security and failed to protect user information; charged users to delete profiles (but didn’t); and used fake profiles to lure in customers. While the settlement has a price tag of $8.75 million, Ashley Madison will actually pay significantly less than that. [More]
Yahoo Explains Why It Turned Off Email Auto-Forwarding; Turns It Back On
By 10.14.16
Earlier this week, we told you about Yahoo Mail users complaining that they could no longer use the auto-forward function to have things from their Yahoo account forwarded to a different address. Now Yahoo is explaining why it turned off this function, and why it’s turned it back on. [More]
Who Am I Supposed To Call When My Credit Card Info Is Stolen?
By 10.11.16 — Updated: 11.1.16
You just found out your credit or debit card info has been used by someone else to make a fraudulent purchase. There are so many different people you can call, each involved in some aspect of this theft. There’s your bank that issued the card, the credit card network the issuer uses for that card, the retailer or website that processed the payment, the police, the FBI… Do you need to call all of these or just one or two? What if you think your incident might be a sign of a larger breach? [More]
Yahoo Facing Lawsuits, Senate Inquiry, Possibly Merger Issues After Massive Data Breach
By 9.27.16
Last week was pretty rough for Yahoo, which confirmed on Thursday that it suffered a major data breach affecting more than half a billion (yes, with a B) users. Now 500 million people with Yahoo accounts are trying to figure out what to do next… but they’re not the only ones. [More]
