Scam of the day – September 5, 2022 – Samsung Announces Data Breach

by | Sep 4, 2022 | Scam of the day

Electronics company Samsung recently announced that it had suffered a data breach in July that they discovered in August.  As a result of the data breach personal information including the names of customers, their birth dates, demographic information and product registration information was compromised. Here is a link to Samsung’s notice to its customers about the data breach. https://www.samsung.com/us/support/securityresponsecenter/

So what can you do to protect yourself from these data breaches that will be occurring?

TIPS

One important lesson is to limit the amount of personal information that you provide to companies and websites whenever possible.  For example, your doctor doesn’t need your Social Security number for his or her records.  It is interesting to note that Samsung indicated in its notice to customers stated, “We collect information necessary to help deliver the best experience possible with our products and services” which frankly is a ridiculous claim.  Collecting information such as your birth date does absolutely nothing to provide a better experience for the customer.  Their information gathering is primarily for their own marketing purposes.  Whenever you provide personal information to a company you should first consider whether the company actually has a legitimate need for that information and refuse to give them anything unless it is in your best interest.

Freezing your credit is something everyone should do and is the single, best thing you can do to protect yourself from identity theft even if someone has much of your personal information.  It is free and easy to do.  In addition, it protects you from someone using your identity to obtain loans or make large purchases even if they have your Social Security number.  If you have not already done so, put a credit freeze on your credit reports at all of the major credit reporting agencies.  Here are links to each of them with instructions about how to get a credit freeze:
Even after freezing your credit reports, you should still regularly monitor them to look for indications of identity theft. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the three major credit reporting bureaus are offering free weekly online credit reports through December 31, 2022. The weekly free reports can be ordered online only through the official website: www.AnnualCreditReport.com.

We would also like to take this opportunity to ask you a favor.  This year we are celebrating 10 years of Scamicide.  During that time we have published almost 4,000 Scams of the day and been among the earliest to recognize and make you aware of a wide range of scams and identity theft threats including ransomware and SIM swapping.  Scamicide has received much national recognition including being names by the NY Times as one of the three best sources for information about Coronarivus related scams.  Scamicide is free and our goal is to help as many people avoid being scammed as possible and that is where the favor comes in.  We would like each of you to consider asking three friends or family to subscribe to Scamicide.  It is easy to do as indicated above and the more people who subscribe, the more people we can help.  Thanks.

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