Another data breach, this time at Capital One

A security breach at Capital One Financial, one of the nation's largest issuers of credit cards, compromised the personal information of about 106 million people. In some cases, the hacker obtained Social Security and bank account numbers.

On Monday, Capital One stated that the largest category of exposed data was information about consumers and small businesses applying for credit card products from 2005 through early 2019.  The data included names, addresses, ZIP codes, phone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth, and self-reported income.

The hacker also gained access to credit card data including credit scores, limits, balances, and payment history as well as fragments of transactions data from a total of 23 days during 2016, 2017 and 2018.

"This is Equifax bad," said Siciliano, referring to the 2017 breach that compromised the data of more than 147 million people.

So... What now?

• Capital One will notify affected individuals through "a variety of channels" and offer free credit monitoring and identity protection available to all affected.
• Capital One believes "it is unlikely that the information was used for fraud or disseminated."
• Enroll in account text and/or email alerts to help keep track of activity.
• Monitor credit card accounts for unusual or suspicious activity.
• Call the number on the back of the credit card if unusual activity is observed.
• Stay vigilant about the possibility of phishing emails and calls following the breach. Phishing is a malicious attempt to access personal information or bank accounts by posing as a legitimate company or official.
• Capital One is not calling customers to ask for credit card or account information or Social Security numbers over the phone or via email.
• Report emails suspected of phishing activity by forwarding it to the official Capital One security account, abuse@capitalone.com. Do not reply to suspicious emails and delete them after forwarding them to Capital One.

The single biggest thing you can do to protect yourself is to change your passwords! Email and banking passwords in particular.

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