Scam of the day – January 24, 2024 – Massive Data Breach Hits VF Corporation

Data breaches have become an all-too-common feature of life today and they pose a significant threat to all of us because regardless of how careful we are at protecting our personal data, we are only as secure as the companies and governmental agencies that hold our information.  Today’s data breach involves 35.5 million customers of VF Corporation, a clothing conglomerate and while the company name may not be familiar to you, the popular brands that they own and which are affected by the data breach including Dickies, JanSport, North Face, Supreme, Timberland and Vans certainly are familiar to many of us.

We only recently learned of the data breach which occurred in mid December when the company filed a mandatory report with the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC).

At the present time we don’t know what customer information was compromised and the investigation into the data breach is ongoing.  VF has said that they do not believe at this time that passwords were taken and the company does not store Social Security numbers, bank account details or credit card numbers so theoretically that information should be safe.  Most likely the information stolen did include names, addresses demographic information and purchase information of its customers.

TIPS

VF customers should be skeptical of any email that appears to come from VF that asks you to click on a link or provide personal information because the information compromised in the data breach could be used to create personally tailored spear phishing emails intended to lure you into clicking on malware infected links or providing personal information that can be used to make you a victim of identity theft. Trust me, you can’t trust anyone.

Although in this particular data breach, it does not appear that passwords were compromised, the data breach serves as a good reminder that you should make sure that you have a unique password for each of your online accounts so that if one of your passwords is compromised in a data breach, all of your accounts will not be in danger.  If your information is compromised in a data breach, you should immediately change the password for that account.

If you have not already done so, set up dual factor authentication for each of you accounts where it is available. This will protect you from having those accounts stolen by someone who may have access to your password.  However it should be noted that the malware responsible for this particular data breach is able to bypass password requirements and dual factor authentication.

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#VFdatabreach #northfacedatabreach #dualfactorauthentication #creditfreeze