People that shop at big department stores and make payments via credit cards issued have the implicit understanding that their information is safe. When a security breach occurs, the personal information of every single person in the database is compromised and can be used in the face of identity theft and misuse. Here are the top five data security breaches that have been disclosed to the general public in 2014.
1) Target Stores
Personal information and credit card data was compromised in the area of 110 million customers. Whatever information that the consumer has on file with that credit card company would have been available to the hacker involved. That could include names,addresses,social security numbers, credit card numbers and possibly passwords to websites that the consumer may frequent.
2) Michaels Stores
This security breach was detected by the advent of hundreds of fraudulent purchases made at point of sale machines with Michaels. The data that was compromised included consumer names, credit card numbers, email addresses and phone numbers. The number of consumers affected was more than 70 million.
3) First American Bank – Illinois
This data security breach happened when people used their credit cards for payment for taxicab rides while in Chicago. Attention was made from the card holders of fraudulent charges after using taxis that included Checker, Yellow and others. In this particular case it seems that only credit card information was taken to use for purchases at retail outlets.
4) Orient-Express Hotels
Customers staying at any of these named hotels that used their credit cards may have been compromised as well. Their credit card numbers, expiration dates and security codes were accessible when hackers infiltrated company computers that contained this information.
5) Staysure corporation
This may have been a low key security breach but the information compromised was to the tune of 100,000 customers. The information was a compiled list of personal information from donors associated with the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. Customer names, email addresses, passwords and financial information were available for anyone to download.
6) Los Angeles Care health
This data security breach wasn’t as bad as other big corporations but still is considered a data breach. When users logged onto the website information of other members such as names, addresses and identification numbers were made available to the public. This was an error that was traced to the protocol of inputting information into the database. No sensitive information was compromised.
7) Neiman Marcus
Neiman Marcus “is an American luxury specialty department store owned by the Neiman Marcus Group, headquartered in Dallas, Texas.” It was breached during the 2013 Christmas season, putting upwards to 70+ million customer credentials at risk.
How To Respond To A Declared Security Breach
Once a person hears of a security breach to their particular credit cards they should immediately apply for and receive another card with a completely new credit card number. Changing the passwords to any online websites associated with the company is also a good policy to take as well. Monitoring all transactions on the credit card is a prudent action to take as well. Making a daily habit of perusing checking account charges along with credit card transactions is prudent action that can well be worth the effort in the prevention of being compromised.
