Most Effective Tactics To Respond To A Personal Data Breach
Your Personal Information Has Been Breached.
Now What?
You check
your mail after coming home from work, and find a notification that your
personal data has been exposed in a Data Breach. Has that happened to you yet?
Notifications
like this are becoming more commonplace and while it is a cause for concern,
the questions become how concerned should I be and how exactly do I respond to
this?
Many Breach
notifications now bring with them an offer of an identity theft product/service
for 12 or 24 months and some may think that these offer of services is all they
need, for that particular time period, whether it’s 12 or 24 months, to be
protected, minimize their risks to identity theft and offer assistance to
respond should something happen.
A proactive
approach and offensive strategy is to already have a product/service in place
to be in a position to detect, and then, as needed, respond to an event
involving your personal identifying information. (PII)
*It’s
important to note that any restoration services available through an offer from
the breached entity may apply only to a matter connected to the breach event
itself and may be limited in scope.
That’s something you don’t want to overlook*
As an
example, if you found yourself the victim of an identity theft event unrelated
to the breach, restoration services would not apply. Ponder this example:
·
You
received an identity theft-related product for 24 months at no cost to you
because of a breach event involving a cyber-attack on a database that contained
your name, SSN and address. You then
found yourself the victim of counterfeit and forged checks-someone obtained
your personal information and made checks with your information on them and
forged your signature to them.
·
The
product/service provided by the breached organization would not provide
services to address and resolve the counterfeit and forged checks because that
event is not related to the breach suffered by the organization.
Some Helpful Tips to Follow When You
Receive a Data Breach Notice:
Data breach
notifications have a tendency to elicit a wide range of responses-everything
from anger and fear to complete apathy.
But as the recipient of such a notice, the most important thing to do is
remain calm and keep in mind there are positive steps that you can take,
including:
1st:
Don’t over or under react. While
a breach notice doesn’t mean you are a victim of identity theft, it does mean
that your information was apparently accessed by someone without authority to
see it. However, it’s not something you should toss aside without examining,
either.
2nd:
Read the entire letter the breached entity sent you, and consider these
questions:
·
What
entity sent the letter?
·
Why
did they have personal data about you/what is their relationship to you?
·
What
type of data was exposed? Was it your
SS#, information on an existing financial account, your email address? Each exposure calls for a different response
from you.
·
How
did this happen? Was it an accident or an
orchestrated sophisticated attack on that entity for the sole purpose of
stealing data?
·
Is
the company offering credit monitoring, identity theft consultation, identity
restoration, or other services to you?
If you have
doubts about the legitimacy of the letter, check the website of the entity
sending the letter and/or call their corporate office directly to verify the
event and any associated offers.
3rd:
Be Cautious. Scammers may try to
use this event to trick/scam people into giving up their personal information
via multiple methods, including phishing attempts by phone/email. If you receive a phone call/email from
someone claiming to be from the business that notified you of the breach and
they’re asking for your personal information to verify, whatever you do, don’t
respond to them. Instead, call the
affected business directly to determine if it was their actual representative
who contacted you.
4th:
Consider owning an Identity Theft Restoration Service before you receive
a breach notification. And the sooner
you can do so, the better off you’ll be.
It’s imperative to compare identity theft service offerings very closely
and carefully. Not all offer full
restoration services, but rather they offer support services, via call centers
or prewritten letters the victim must send out on his/her own. With a service like that, identity theft
victims must still do the bulk of the work in investigating and restoring their
name and correcting the fraud that may have occurred. That can be quite a daunting task. Just ask anyone who has gone thru it or is
currently going thru it.
The best
defense is a strong, proactive offense.
We provide
our members Licensed Fraud Investigators who will go to work on our members
behalf to restore their identity(s), in full, to pre-theft status. We provide full restoration, from beginning
to end. This saves our members time,
money, headaches and financial resources.
It also
saves companies time & money, while improving employee productivity. If an employee or a member of his family gets
hit with identity theft, that can and normally does have a negative impact on
employee productivity.
The best
defense is a strong, proactive offense.
In your search and comparison of identity theft service offerings, I
invite you to please consider our services and compare us with anything
available today. We offer “best in
class” with the leaders in the marketplace.
Please by my
guest and visit us online where you’ll find more information on our services,
our companies behind the services, and how they can benefit you, your family,
your business & your employees. Our
services can also be offered as a 100% voluntary employee benefit. No direct cost to the company.
Be my guest and visit:
www.idtheftmd.com and/or www.clickonthenet.com
And if we can
ever be of any service to you or your company, please contact me. Thanks in advance and make it a great day.
Sincerely,
Steve
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