If you're a customer of Best Buy (BBY), Citigroup (C),or any one of the 2,200 global brands that relies on email marketinggiant Epsilon, you may have received a rather alarming notice over theweekend. Epsilon has reported a security breach that may havecompromised your email address and name.
While it may at first sound like the identity thieves walked away withvery little, the potential for damage can be great, say securityexperts. For example, armed with your name, email address, and the nameof a company with whom you do business, identity thieves can send anauthentic-looking but bogus Best Buy email asking you to supply yourcredit card information or other personal information. This can laterbe used to pilfer your financial accounts.
What You Can Do
Here are some steps consumers can take when receiving an unsolicited email, according to Kristensen:
- Open a new browser and visit the website that supposedlysent the email; check to see if it's promoting the same offer that hasbeen sent to you unsolicited;
- Mouse over the link contained in the email and look atthe lower left corner of the screen to see if the domain name matchesthe company that is purportedly sending the email;
- If you must click on the link, once it's open it shouldstill show the same domain name. If it doesn't -- and it asks you forfinancial information like a bank account number or social securitynumber, do not provide the information. If the opened link now has adifferent domain name, although it's not requesting financialinformation, the identity thief may have opted to infect your computerwith a virus instead.
- Best advice of all is to avoid clicking on links or opening attachments placed in unsolicited emails.
- And, finally, keep your security software updated.
See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/gXgLbf
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