How to Respond to Data Breaches

 

This article discusses the ways you can find out if your data has been hacked, what you can do in order to make sure this does not continue to happen, and how to diminish the effects of a data breach.  Not only this, but it notes that once your data is stolen, it can continue to be redistributed by other hackers.  I agree with the author that once your data is taken, you should change as much of your information as you can such as passwords and email addresses.  But what the author does not mention is what happens when your phone number is stolen.  I would also look to change my phone number because it creates an avenue for criminals to harass people by leaving voicemails and possibly threatening others into giving them more information.  While the article offers easy solutions to finding out if you have been hacked and what to do with information that can easily be changed, it does not go into great detail about what to do for information that cannot be easily changed such as your home address.  It does mention that if your drivers’ license number or social security number are stolen to reach out to the correct government agency. This is not a very great explanation in what seems to be the most difficult part of dealing with your data being hacked.  Most people would know to change their password and to check for unusual activity on an account that may have been hacked.  The most difficult part is how to deal with the stolen information that cannot be changed and the process that needs to take place in order to make sure that the information is either changed or somehow recovered.  This should have been the main focus of the article.  He says that the emphasis is on easy fixes because most data that is stolen is not personal data.  Although this is true, the author does not prioritize the most important steps that need to be taken.  This way the article would be much more informative and give people an idea of how long the process should take.  For example, in the recent hacking of Facebook that occurred over the weekend, over 530 million users had their data stolen including names, phone numbers, account IDs, and bios.  If I am one of those people who had these items hacked, the phone number is the one that I would be most worried about.  I can easily delete my account and bios do not usually have personal information, but the phone number connects directly to me.  Social media companies collect massive amounts of data and cyber-attacks like the Facebook hack show the importance of database security.  However, we have seen many times that social media companies will have data breaches and  hackers use this stolen data to create scams.  Social media companies have the responsibility to protect data and inform its users of any breaches.

 

Holmes, A. (2021, April 03). How to find out if your data was exposed in an online breach - and how to protect yourself. Retrieved April 04, 2021, from https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-find-out-if-your-data-exposed-breach-facebook-2021-4