Scam of the day – April 6, 2024 – City of Hope Cancer Center Suffers Data Breach

Steven Weisman, Esq.

2 years ago

Earlier this week Cancer treatment and research center City of Hope disclosed that it had suffered a data breach affecting 820,000 patients whose personal information was compromised. The data breach occurred between September and October of 2023, but was only disclosed this week. Included in the compromised information was names, email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers and more. The extent of the personal information stolen puts the patients in serious danger of identity theft.

Last year, there were more than 1,800 reported data breaches and probably many more that were not reported affecting 422 million people. The question is not if you will become a victim of a data breach. The question is when.

As I have reminded you many times, we are only as safe and secure as the security of the companies, government agencies and websites that have our personal information. Even if you are extremely diligent in protecting your personal information, you can be in danger of identity theft and scams if your personal information falls into the hands of hackers.

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.

You should also 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.

Freezing your credit is also something everyone should do. 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:

https://www.equifax.com/personal/credit-report-services/credit-freeze/
https://www.transunion.com/credit-freeze
https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html

Regularly monitoring your credit reports for indications of fraud is also something we all should do particularly if you have been a victim of a data breach. The three major credit reporting agencies now provide free weekly access to your credit reports so you can monitor your credit reports easily on your own. Here is the only link to use to get your free credit reports.https://www.annualcreditreport.com/index.action

Some scammers have websites that appear to offer “free” credit reports, but if you read the fine print, you often may find that you have signed up for unnecessary services.

Finally, be wary whenever you are contacted following a data breach by anyone offering assistance. Scammers will often contact victims of data breaches posing as governmental agencies or private companies claiming they can assist in protecting the victims when all they really will do is convince you to pay them for worthless services.

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#databreach #cityofhopedatabreach