By Bill Pytlovany
Last week a serious failure in storing names and Email occurred due to a security flaw by a company name Epsilon. This may be the largest failure in protecting names and Email in my lifetime. Epsilon is trying to downplay this failure by claiming it only lost 2% of its database
Even though you’ve never heard of Epsilon by now many of you have received letters from companies who use Epsilon to handle their mass Emailing. What we know to be compromised so far is only your name and Email but hackers will also know which companies you do business with.
So you should expect the following.
1) More Spam
2) More Phishing:
You should expect to see targeted Emails from companies affected by this failure. The Email will appear to come from your bank and they’ll know your name. As I often recommend, DO NOT CLICK on links found in an Email. Go directly to the company web site and see if there is a problem.
Security researcher Brian Krebs has a partial list of companies affected which he has been updating daily. Click here and/or scroll down.
- 1800-Flowers
- Abe Books
- Air Miles CA
- Ameriprise Financial
- Barclays Bank of Delaware
- Beachbody
- Bebe Stores Inc.
- Benefit Cosmetics
- BestBuy
- Brookstone
- Capital One
- Charter Communications (Charter.com)
- Chase
- Citibank
- City Market
- The College Board
- Crucial.com
- Dell Australia
- Dillons
- Disney Vacations
- Eurosport/Soccer.com
- Eddie Bauer
- Food 4 Less
- Fred Meyer
- Fry’s
- Hilton Honors
- The Home Shopping Network
- Jay C
- JP Morgan Chase
- King Soopers
- Kroger
- LL Bean
- Marks & Spencer (UK)
- Marriott Rewards
- McKinsey Quarterly
- Moneygram
- New York & Co.
- QFC
- Ralphs
- Red Roof Inns Inc.
- Ritz Carlton
- Robert Half
- Smith Brands
- Target
- TD Ameritrade
- TIAA-CREF
- TiVo
- US Bank
- Verizon
- Viking River Cruises
- Walgreens
- World Financial Network National Bank
List updated and maintained by http://krebsonsecurity.com/
So far, Epsilon has been quiet except for the small note above. They’re letting their customers handle the brunt of this public relations nightmare.
So far I’ve received two Emails but I expect more.
This post is excerpted with Bill’s permission from his blog
