Modern marketing forces businesses to collect data on their client base. Information like birthdays, contact information, gender, and shopping preferences allow organizations to create detailed profiles and improve their overall strategy.
This practice raises questions about the ethicality of targeted marketing but also introduces another dangerous consequence: Cybercriminals arguably better leverage this practice of exhaustive data collection.
Since 2016, over 1,000 data breaches were reported annually, with over 3,200 data breaches occurring in 2023, an increase of about 72 percent from the previous year. Corporate compromise isn't going anywhere. Social engineering and black hat hackers are becoming more sophisticated, leaving small and medium-sized businesses playing catch-up.
A severe breach can compromise consumers' credit card and banking details. However, a breach doesn't have to fully penetrate a system to uncover dangerous information. The most basic information, like a birth year, allows criminals to craft more believable phishing schemes.
Additionally, consumers' information can float around the dark web for years before finding use. This means that data breach victims must remain forever vigilant for attacks on their identity, whether those be spam emails, unknown credit lines, or fraudulent text messages.
Businesses have a legal obligation to report data breaches promptly. However, this obligation is one-sided and doesn't require the victim to confirm they received the communication. Many people sign up for services with burner emails or change their phone numbers over time.
In these cases, consumers could go their entire lives without realizing their data was compromised in a breach.
Dedicated tools like IDStrong's Data Breach Tracker are the best places to turn in these situations. This service takes the user's personal identifiers and repeatedly searches for instances of them on the dark web. Users receive a ping whenever their email, name, phone number, or other dangerous elements are found online.
This knowledge allows victims to act immediately and raise their vigilance in daily life. Prepared individuals are more likely to recognize signs of identity theft, including unexplained financial transactions or missing mail. Knowing their information is at risk from a data breach also encourages victims to routinely request credit reports.
While a ding from the data breach tracker doesn't mean an identity is already compromised, it is prudent to set a credit freeze. This is easily accomplished by contacting any of the three major credit bureaus, and they will contact the other two on the victim's behalf.
Founded in 2018, MC2 Data is based in Florida and specializes in background check services. MC2 aggregates data from several records to provide background check services to landlords, employers, and other organizations.
Delta Dental is a dental insurance provider serving over 90 million Americans. It offers coverage in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C. The company was established in 1966 in California as part of the Delta Dental Plans Association.
Hot Topic plays in the fashion, apparel, and shoe industry as a retailer of music-influenced apparel and accessories, such as jeans, tops, belts, dresses, pajamas, sunglasses, jewelry, and tees.
Hilton Hotels was formally opened in 1925 in Dallas, Texas. It is a hospitality company with at least 7,629 properties across 126 countries and territories, including the United States.
Caesars Entertainment is an American hotel and entertainment company based in Reno, Nevada. The firm was formed in 2020 when Eldorado Resorts, Inc.
Financial Business and Consumer Solutions (FBCS) was founded in 1982 as Federal Bond Collection Services and currently has over 100 employees.
Ticketmaster is an American ticket sales and distribution company that provides services for event organizers, venues, and fans.
Reportedly, in the top 160 most visited websites in the world, Wattpad prides itself as the world's most loved storytelling platform.
Teleperformance began its operations in 1910 in Paris, France, as a customer service management company. The company founded its United States division in 1993, which is situated in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Simmons Bank is a community with scale founded in 1903 in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. It was officially opened in 1922 and has since grown with over $27 billion in assets, over 3,200 associates, and footprints in over 200 locations in six states.
Founded in 1965, Princess Cruises rose to prominence in the late 1970s after being heavily featured on the hit TV show "The Love Boat" and is currently a leading name in the cruise industry.
Norton LifeLock is a global player in consumer cyber safety with a growing portfolio designed to ensure users are confident in their online privacy, security, and identity theft protection.