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 a data breach at National Public Data, a prominent data broker company used by other companies for background checks.  Last April a cybercriminal group claimed to have stolen personal data of 2.9 billion people in the United States, the UK and Canada and was offering the data for sale for 3.5 million dollars on the dark web, that part of the Internet where criminals buy and sell goods and services.  Now most of that data has been released for free on the dark web by one of the cybercriminals.  The data includes sensitive personal information including names, birth dates, phone numbers and, of most concern, Social Security numbers of many people in the data breach.  Meanwhile National Public Data has not even confirmed that they were hacked.

In response to the data breach a class action has been filed in federal court in Florida.

TIPS

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