If you haven't heard, hackers stole e-mail addresses from Epsilon, an Irving, Texas-based marketing company that sends e-mails on behalf of its 2,200 clients, which include many major financial institutions and retailers. Epsilon won't say which companies were affected, but local companies Target, Best Buy, U.S. Bancorp and Ameriprise have all sent notes to clients about the breach. Star Tribune reporters Chris Serres and Steve Alexander had the story Tuesday.
Chase was first to send me an e-mail. Then I heard from Target and Walgreens. I might have received an e-mail from TiVo as well, but honestly I can't remember.
If it sounds like I'm not too concerned about the news that my e-mail address was among the many stolen, you'd be right.
Here's why: I assume scammers are trying to access my credit cards and bank accounts every single day. It doesn't take a highly publicized break-in for identity theft to occur. Think about how often we give out our personal information these days, especially online.
This Epsilon hack is widespread. But the bad guys only have our e-mail addresses. If they'd found their way to passwords or account information, the ramifications would be far, far worse.
I certainly think the phishing attempts will multiply after this security breach. They may even be tougher to spot, since they'll be coming from businesses we have relationships with and the fraudsters can call us by name.
But it's our job as consumers these days to be vigilant protectors of our personal and financial information every single day, not just when we receive apologetic e-mails from big companies about major security breaches.
There are many simple steps you can take to protect yourself, the theme of a column I recently wrote about identity theft:
