Hey – short answer – yes very probably. But how can you find out if your personal data or credit card information has been compromised somewhere you shop, patronize, or frequent, either online or in person?
I originally intended to put together a list of the larger breaches, but seriously, there were too many of them. In 2013 and 2014, there have been 835 breaches that exposed 265.5 million records. Totally frightening statistics. So where did I find this information. I found it at Privacy Rights Clearinghouse web site. At this site, you can select from a variety of parameters, including years 2005 to 2014, organization types including business retail, medical, and government, and types of exposures including unintended disclosure, credit card fraud, insider, or hacking and malware based attacks. Go ahead an check it out. You set your parameters, press GO, then scroll down and read your results.
In my initial search of just retail hacks over the last two years, of just retailers experiencing a malware hack or credit card fraud, there were a total of 77 breaches involving over 47 million records. The most recent: Home Depot, iCloud, Dairy Queen, and the UPS Store.
The point is you can at least find out if your information was at risk at the places you use your credit card. Yeah, I am still using plastic myself, but cash is really getting appealing again.
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About the Author:
I am a cybersecurity and IT instructor, cybersecurity analyst, pen-tester, trainer, and speaker. I am an owner of the WyzCo Group Inc. In addition to consulting on security products and services, I also conduct security audits, compliance audits, vulnerability assessments and penetration tests. I also teach Cybersecurity Awareness Training classes. I work as an information technology and cybersecurity instructor for several training and certification organizations. I have worked in corporate, military, government, and workforce development training environments I am a frequent speaker at professional conferences such as the Minnesota Bloggers Conference, Secure360 Security Conference in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, the (ISC)2 World Congress 2016, and the ISSA International Conference 2017, and many local community organizations, including Chambers of Commerce, SCORE, and several school districts. I have been blogging on cybersecurity since 2006 at http://wyzguyscybersecurity.com